CHAPTER V

KERBELÂ TO BAGHDÂD

_March 30--April 12_

To travel in the desert is in one respect curiously akin to travelling

on the sea: it gives you no premonition of the changed environment to

which the days of journeying are conducting you. When you set sail from

a familiar shore you enter on a course from which the usual landmarks of

daily existence have been swept away. What has become of the march of

time? Dawn leads to noon, noon to sunset, sunset to the night; but night

breaks into a dawn indistinguishable from the last, the same sky above,

the same sea on every side, the same planks beneath your feet. Is it

indeed another day? or is it yesterday lived over again? Then on a

sudden you touch the land and find that that recurring day has carried

you round half the globe. So it is in the desert. You rise and look out

upon the same landscape that greeted you before--the contour of the

hills may have altered ever so slightly, the hollow that holds your camp

has deepened by a few yards since last week, the limitless sweep of the

plain was not hidden a fortnight ago by that little mound; but here are

the same people about you, speaking of the same things, here is the same

path to be followed, yes, even the seasons are the same, and the dusty

face of the desert is too old to flush at the advent of spring or to be

wreathed in autumn garlands of gold and scarlet. Yet at the end of a

long interval composed of periods recurrent and alike, you look round

and see that the whole face of the universe has changed.

When we reached Kerbelâ we passed into a world of which the aspect and

the associations were entirely new to me. I had set out from an Arab

town in North Syria, and I emerged in a Persian city linked historically

with the Holy Places, with the first struggles and the only great

schism of Islâm. At Kerbelâ was enacted the tragedy of the death of

Ḥussein, son of ’Alî ibn abi Tâlib; the place has grown up round the

mosque that holds his tomb, and to one half of those who profess the

Mohammadan creed it is a goal no less sacred than Mecca. But it was not

the golden dome of Ḥussein, though it covers the richest treasure of

offerings possessed by any known shrine (unless the treasure in ’Alî’s

tomb of Nejef touch a yet higher value), nor yet the presence of the

green-robed Persians, narrow of soul, austere and stern of

countenance--it was not the wealth and fame of the Shî’ah sanctuary that

made the strongest assault upon the imagination. It was the sense of

having reached those regions which saw the founding of imperial Islâm,

regions which remained for many centuries the seat of the paramount

ruler, the Commander of the Faithful. Within the compass of a two-days’

journey lay the battlefield of Ḳâdisîyah, where Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd

overthrew at once and for ever the Sassanian power. Chosroes with his

hosts, his satraps, his Arab allies--those princes of the house of

Mundhîr whose capital was one of the first cradles of Arab

culture--stepped back at his coming into the shadowy past; their cities

and palaces faded and disappeared, Ḥîrah, Khawarnaḳ, Ctesiphon, and many

another of which the very site is forgotten; all the pomp and valour of

an earlier time fell together like an army of dreams at the first

trumpet-blast of those armies of the Faith which hold the field until

this hour. Then came the day of vigour; the adding of dominion to

dominion; the building of great Mohammadan towns, Kûfah, Wâsiṭ, Baṣrah,

and last of all Baghdâd, last and greatest. And then decline, and

finally the transference of authority. This was the story that was

unfolded before me as I stood upon the roof of a Persian house and gazed

down into the gorgeously tiled courtyard of the mosque of Ḥussein, in

which none but the Faithful may set foot. When I lifted my eyes and

looked westward I saw the desert across which the soldiers of the

Prophet had come to batter down the old civilizations; when I looked

east I saw the road to Baghdâd, where their descendants had cultivated

with no less renown, the arts of peace. The low sun shone upon the

golden dome; the nesting storks held conversation from minaret to

minaret, with much clapping of beaks and shaking out of unruffled wings;

the Spirit of Islâm marched out of the wilderness and seized the

fruitful earth.

There were other lesser things which aroused a more personal if not a

keener interest. The oranges were good at Kerbelâ, as Fattûḥ had said.

The shops were heaped with them and with pale sweet lemons: I fear I

must have astonished my military escort, for I stopped at every corner

to buy more and yet more, and ate them as I went along the streets,

hoping to satisfy the inextinguishable thirst born of the desert. Side

by side with the oranges lay mountains of pink roses, the flowers cut

off short and piled together; every one in the town carried a handful of

them and sniffed at them as he walked. After night had fallen I was

invited to a bountiful Persian dinner, where we feasted on lamb stuffed

with pistachios, and drank sherbet out of deep wooden spoons. And there

I heard some talk of politics.

Under the best of circumstances, said one of my informants,

constitutional government was not likely to be popular in the province

of ’Irâḳ. Men of property were all reactionary at heart. They had got

together their wealth by force and oppression; their title-deeds would

not bear critical examination, and they resented the curiosity and the

comments of the newly-fledged local press. Nor were the majority of the

officials better inclined--how was it possible? To forbid corruption,

unless the order were accompanied by a rise in salary corresponding to

the perquisites of which they were deprived (and this was forbidden by

the state of the imperial exchequer) meant for them starvation. A judge,

for example, is appointed for two and a half years and his salary is

£T15 a month, not enough to keep himself and his family in circumstances

which would accord with his position. But over and above the expenses of

living he must see to the provision of a sum sufficient to engage the

sympathies of his superiors when his appointment shall have expired;

otherwise he might abandon the hope of further employment. Most probably

he would have to defray the heavy charges of a journey to

Constantinople, to enable him to push his claim, not to speak of the

fact that he might spend several unsalaried months in the capital before

his request was granted. “And so it is that out of ten men, eleven take

bribes, and, as far as we can see, nothing has come of the constitution

but the black fez” (this because of the boycott on the red fez, made in

Austria), “free speech and two towers, one at Kerbelâ and one at Nejef,

to commemorate the age of liberty.” Under the new régime Kerbelâ had

received a mutesarrif whose story was a good example of the mistakes

which men were apt to commit when first the old restraints were relaxed.

He was of the Aḥrâr, the Liberals, and had begun his career as secretary

to the Vâlî of Baghdâd. The people of Baghdâd raised a complaint against

him, on the ground that in the fast month of Ramaḍân he had been seen to

smoke a cigarette in the bazaar between sunrise and sunset, which showed

clearly that he was an infidel, and he was dismissed from his post; but

since he was one of the Aḥrâr and had friends in Constantinople, he was

presently appointed to Kerbelâ. Now Kerbelâ, being a holy place

inhabited mostly by Persian Shî’ahs, is one of the most fanatical cities

in the Ottoman Empire, and a mutesarrif who brought with him so

unfortunate a reputation could do nothing that was right. Some of his

reforms were in themselves reasonable, but he was not the man to

initiate them, nor was Kerbelâ the best field for experiments. The town,

owing to blind extortion on the part of the government and to neglect of

the irrigation system, is growing rapidly poorer and yields an ever

diminishing revenue. This revenue is burdened by a number of pensions,

and the mutesarrif, looking for a way of retrenchment, found it by

depriving all pensioners of their means of livelihood. The pensioners

were holy men, sayyids, whose duty it was to pray for the welfare of the

Sultan. Some were old and some were deserving, some were neither, but

all were holy, and the feelings that were aroused in Kerbelâ when they

were left destitute baffle description.

“Yet,” continued my host, “the Turks understand government. There was

once in Baṣrah an excellent governor; his name was Ḥamdî Bey. When he

came to Baṣrah it was the worst city in Turkey; every night there were

murders, and no one dared to leave his house after dark lest when he

returned he should find that he had been robbed of all he possessed.”

“So it is now in Baṣrah,” said I, for the town is a by-word in

Mesopotamia.

“Yes, so it is now,” he returned, “but it was different when Ḥamdî Bey

was governor. For a year he sat quiet and collected information

concerning all the villains in the place; but he did nothing. Now there

was at that time a harmless madman in Baṣrah whom the people called

Ḥajjî Beiḍâ, the White Pilgrim; and when they saw Ḥamdî Bey driving

through the streets, they would point at him and laugh, saying: ‘There

goes Ḥajjî Beiḍâ.’ But at the end of a year he assembled all the chief

men and said: ‘Hitherto you have called me Ḥajjî Beiḍâ; now you shall

call me Ḥajjî Ḳara, the Black Pilgrim.’ And then and there he cast most

of them into prison and produced his evidence against them. And after a

year’s time the town was so peaceful that he ordered the citizens to

leave their doors open at night; and as long as Ḥamdî Bey remained at

Baṣrah no man troubled to lock his door. And at another time there was a

Commandant in Baṣrah, and he too brought the place to order. For when he

knew a prisoner to be guilty, yet failed to get the witnesses to speak

against him, he would put the man to death in prison by means of a hot

iron which he drove into his stomach through a tube. Then it was given

out that the man had died of an illness, and every one rejoiced that

there should be a rogue the less.”

I made no comment, but my expression must have betrayed me, for my

interlocutor added a justification of the commandant’s methods. “In

Persia,” said he, “they bury them alive.”

“My soldiers have told me,” said I, not to be outdone, “that in Persia

they cut off a thief’s hand, and I think they regard it as the proper

sentence, for they generally add: ‘That is ḥukm, justice.’”

“It is the sherî’ah,” he replied simply, “the holy law,” and he recited

the passage from the Ḳurân: “If a man or woman steal, cut off their

hands in retribution for that which they have done; this is an exemplary

punishment appointed by God, and God is mighty and wise.”

I had intended to go straight from Kerbelâ to Babylon, but I was

reckoning without full knowledge of the Hindîyeh swamp. The history of

this swamp is both curious and instructive. A few miles above the

village of Museiyib, north-east of Kerbelâ, the Euphrates divides into

two channels. The eastern channel, the true bed of the river, runs past

Babylon and Ḥilleh and discharges its waters into the great swamp which

has existed in southern ’Iraḳ ever since the last days of the Sassanian

kings. The western channel is known as the Nahr Hindîyeh; it waters

Kûfah, now a miserable hamlet clustered about the great mosque in which

the khalif ’Alî was assassinated, and flowing through the great swamp

re-enters the Euphrates some way above the junction of the latter with

the Tigris.[85] The dam on the Euphrates which regulated the flowing of

its waters into the Hindîyeh canal has been allowed to fall into

disrepair; every year a deeper and a stronger stream flows down the

Hindîyeh, and matters have reached such a pass that during the season of

low water the eastern bed is dry, the palm gardens of Ḥilleh are dying

for lack of irrigation, and all the country along the river-bank below

Ḥilleh has gone out of cultivation. The growth of the Hindîyeh has

proved scarcely less disastrous. The district to the west of the canal,

in which Kerbelâ lies, is lower than the level of the stream, while the

increasing torrents, bringing with them the silt of the spring floods,

yearly raise the bed of the canal and add to the difficulty of keeping

it within bounds. The Hindîyeh has become an ever-present danger to the

town of Kerbelâ, and indeed in one year, when the stream was unusually

high, the water flowed into the streets. It was the duty of the owners

of the land, a duty prescribed by immemorial custom, to keep up the

dykes, in order to save the cultivated country, and incidentally the

town, from inundation. Needless to say they neglected to do so. A large

part of the land--and here the story takes a very Oriental turn--had

been bought up by a rich Mohammadan who proposed to do a good office by

the holy city and to take the charge of the dykes upon himself. But as

the canal silted up the charge became heavier, until at last the pious

benefactor wearied of his task and refused to do another hand’s turn in

the matter. Thereupon the mutesarrif sent for him and ordered him to

perform his lawful duty. But the landowner was an Indian and a British

subject (at this point I realized that I had come once more into the net

of our vast empire) and he refused to be bullied by a Turkish official.

He pointed out that the floods were largely due to the negligence of the

Arab tribes, who draw from the Hindîyeh ten times as much water as they

need and let it go to waste upon the land, where it helps to form the

redoubted swamp; and since, said he, the swamp was caused not by the

will of God, but by the conduct of the Sultan’s subjects, the government

would do well to remedy the evil by applying to the dykes the forced

labour which it has the right to exact from every man during four days

in the year.[86] The mutesarrif replied that the Indian had not

cultivated his land for four years and that it was therefore forfeit to

the State;[87] the Indian countered him with the rejoinder that the land

had been under pasture and had paid a regular tithe. So the matter stood

in the spring of 1909; the town of Kerbelâ might at any time be flooded

if the river rose, the Hindîyeh swamp was growing day by day, and the

road to Babylon was impassable. No one seemed to regard these perils and

inconveniences as otherwise than inevitable, and I with the rest bowed

my head to the inscrutable decrees of God and took my way to Museiyib.

Museiyib, as I have said, lies on the Euphrates above the point where

the Hindîyeh canal branches off from the river. For the last half of the

day’s journey we skirted the swamp. It was in reality much more than a

swamp: it was a shallow lake extending over a vast area. It had invaded

even the Museiyib road, which is the direct road from Kerbelâ to

Baghdâd, and we, together with all other travellers, had to make a long

détour through the desert. The other travellers were mainly Persian

pilgrims, men, women and children riding on mules in panniers. It is the

ardent wish of every pious Persian to make the pilgrimage to Kerbelâ

once during his lifetime, and still more does he desire to make it once

again after his death, that his body may lie in earth hallowed by the

vicinity of Ḥussein’s grave. Countless caravans of corpses journey

yearly from Persia to Kerbelâ, and the living should bear in mind that

the khâns of the towns are insalubrious, to say the least, owing to the

fact that they are packed with dead bodies awaiting their final burial.

The close connection between Kerbelâ and Persia has been during recent

years of considerable political significance. The large Persian

community, rich, influential and safely placed under the protection of

the Turkish government, has more than once tendered advice to the

struggling factions of its native country, and more than once the advice

has been in the nature of a command. The European is not accustomed to

think of the Ottoman Empire as a haven of refuge for the oppressed, but

the Persian, comparing Turkish administration with his own, regards it

as an unattainable standard of tranquillity and equity. Turkey must be

judged by Asiatic, not by European, possibilities of achievement, and I

tried to keep my thoughts fixed upon the pilgrims jogging sadly home to

their intolerable anarchy; but it was difficult not to notice the bands

of peasants who came wading through the shallow waters of the Hindîyeh

floods, their fields submerged, their crops devastated, their houses

reduced to mud-heaps and their possessions scattered over the swamp. Six

hours from Kerbelâ we reached the Euphrates, a river much smaller than

the one we had left at Hît, since a great part of its waters had been

drawn off into irrigation canals. To my amazement it was provided with a

practicable bridge of boats, by which we crossed, glorifying the works

of man. It was the first, and I may add the only bridge over the

Euphrates that I was privileged to see. We pitched camp on the further

side just beyond the village of Museiyib.

On the following day we turned southwards to Babylon. For two hours we

continued to do battle with the waters, not, however, with untamed

floods, but with the almost equally obtrusive irrigation canals and

runnels which the industrious fellâḥ conducts in all directions across

his fields, regardless of road and path and of the time and temper of

the wayfarer. At length we reached the high road from Baghdâd to Ḥilleh,

beyond the belt of cultivation, and made the rest of the stage

dry-footed. We crossed the Naṣrîyeh canal by a bridge near a ruined

khân, and five hours from Museiyib we came to the village of Maḥawîl on

a canal of the same name, also bridged. There I lunched under

palm-trees--there are no other trees in these regions--and so rode on,

catching up the caravan and crossing many another canal, now dry, now

bringing water to villages far to the east of us. It was a very barren

world, scarred with the traces of former cultivation, and all the more

poverty-stricken and desolate because it had once been rich and peopled;

flat, too, an interminable, featureless expanse from which the glory had

departed. I was almost immersed in the rather jejune reflections which

must assail every one who approaches Babylon, when, as good-luck would

have it, I turned my eyes to the south and perceived, on the edge of the

arid, sun-drenched plain, a mighty mound. There was no need to ask its

name; as certainly as if temple and fortress wall still crowned its

summit I knew it to be Bâbil, the northern mound that retains on the

lips of the Arabs the echo of its ancient title. I left the road, hoping

to find a direct path across the plain to that great vestige of ancient

splendours, but the deep cutting of a water-course, as dry and dead as

Babylon itself, barred the way. My mare climbed to the top of the high

bank that edged it and we stood gazing over the site of the city. A

furtive jackal crept out along the bank, caught sight of Fattûḥ and fled

back into the dry ditch.

“The son of retreat,” said Fattûḥ in the speech of the people.

“Chaḳâl,” said I, searching dimly for some familiar swell of sonorous

phrases which the word seemed to bring with it. And suddenly they rolled

out over the formless thought: “The wolves howl in their palaces and the

jackals in the pleasant places.”

For the past twelve years a little group of German excavators has lived

and worked among the mounds of Babylon. To them I went, in full

assurance of the hospitality which they extend to all comers. The

traveller who enters their house, sheltered by palm-trees, on the banks

of the Euphrates, will find it stored with the best fruits of

civilization: studious activity, hard-won learning and that open-handed

kindness which abolishes distinctions of race and country. As he watches

the daily task of men who are recovering the long-buried history of the

past, he will not know how to divide his admiration between the almost

incredible labour entailed by their researches and the marvellous

culture which their work has laid bare. “Only to the wise is wisdom

given, and knowledge to them that have understanding.”

Within the largest of the mounds, the Ḳaṣr, or castle, as the Arabs call

it, lie the remains of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. Another eight or ten

years’ work will be needed to complete the ground plan of the whole

structure, but enough has been done to show the nature of the house

wherein the king rested. It is built of square tiles, stamped with his

name and bound together with asphalt. The part which has been excavated

consists of an immense irregular area enclosed by thick walls. One of

these (it forms the quay of a canal) is called by the workmen “the

father of twenty-two,” _i. e._ it is twenty-two metres across; another

reaches the respectable width of seventeen metres, but usually the royal

builder was content with five or six metres, or even less. Within the

enclosure lies a bewildering complexity of small courts and passages

with chambers leading out of them--the more bewildering because in many

cases the bricks have disappeared, and the walls must be traced by means

of the spaces left behind. For more than a thousand years after the fall

of Babylon no man building in its neighbourhood was at the pains to

construct brick-kilns, but when he needed material he sought it in

Nebuchadnezzar’s city. Greek, Persian and Arab used it as a quarry, and

as you climb the stairs of the German house you will become aware of the

characters that spell the king’s name upon the steps beneath your feet.

The small courts and chambers, which were no doubt occupied by retinues

of officials and servants of the palace, formed a bulwark of defence for

the king. His apartments lay behind a wide paved court. From the court a

doorway leads into a large oblong chamber, in the back wall of which is

a niche for the throne. This is believed to be the banqueting hall where

Belshazzar made his feast, and on a fragment of wall facing the throne

you may see, if you please, the fingers of a man’s hand writing the

fatal message. How this hall was roofed is an unsolved problem. No

traces of vaulting have been found, yet the width from wall to wall is

so great that it is doubtful whether it could have been covered by a

roof of beams. If there were indeed a vault it would be the earliest

example of such construction on so big a scale. Behind the banqueting

hall are the private chambers, and behind all a narrow passage leading

to an emergency exit, by means of which the king could escape to his

boat on the Euphrates in the last extremity of danger.

Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nabopolassar, had built himself a smaller, but

still very considerable, dwelling which occupied the western side of the

mound. This Nebuchadnezzar destroyed; he filled up the walls and

chambers with rubble and masonry and laid out an extension of his own

palace above it. The plan both of the upper and of the lower palace has

now been ascertained. Above the Babylonian walls are the remains of

Greek and Parthian settlements, each of which has to be carefully

planned before it can be swept away and the lower strata studied. I saw

work being carried on in a mound which formed one of the most ancient

parts of the city; the excavation pits had been sunk twelve or fifteen

metres deep to dwelling-houses of the first Babylonian Empire. They

passed through the periods of the Parthian and of the Greek, through the

age of Nebuchadnezzar and that of the Assyrians, and each stratum was

levelled and planned before the next could be revealed. Add to this that

the most ancient walls were constructed of sun-dried brick, scarcely

distinguishable from the closely-packed earth, and some idea can be

obtained of the extreme difficulty of the work. The oldest Babylonian

houses which have been uncovered rest themselves on rubbish-heaps and

ruins, but deeper digging is impossible owing to the fact that

water-level has been reached. The Euphrates channel has silted up

several metres during the last six thousand years and the primæval

dwellings are now below it. While we were standing at the bottom of a

deep pit, a workman struck out with his pick a little heap of ornaments,

a couple of copper bracelets and the beads of a necklace which had been

worn by some Babylonian woman in the third millennium before Christ and

were restored at last to the light of the sun.

The northern part of the palace mound is as yet almost untouched. Here

can be seen a sculptured block which used to lie among the earth-heaps

until a French engineer built a pedestal for it and set it up above the

ruins (Fig. 104). It is carved in the shape of a colossal lion standing

above the body of a man who lies with arms uplifted. The man’s head is

broken away and the whole group is only half finished, but the huge

beast with the helpless human figure beneath his feet could not have

been given an aspect more sinister. It is as though the workmen of the

Great King had fashioned an image of Destiny, treading relentlessly over

the generations

[Illustration: FIG. 104.--BABYLON, THE LION.]

[Illustration: FIG. 105.--BABYLON, ISHTAR GATE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 106.--BABYLON, ISHTAR GATE.]

of mankind, before they too passed into its clutches. All along the east

side of the palace stretches the Via Sacra, contracting at one point

only its splendid width that it may pass through the gate that stands

midway between the house of Nebuchadnezzar and the temple of the goddess

Ishtar. The Ishtar gate--its name is attested by a cuneiform

inscription--is the most magnificent fragment that remains of all

Nebuchadnezzar’s constructions. Four or five times did he fill up the

Via Sacra and raise its level, and each time he built up the brick

towers of the double gateway to correspond. The various levels of the

pavements can now be seen on the sides of the excavation trench, while

the towers, completely disclosed, rear their unbroken height in

stupendous masses of solid masonry. They are decorated on every side

with alternate rows of bulls and dragons cast in relief on the brick;

the noble strength of the bulls, stepping out firmly with arched neck,

contrasts with the slender ferocious grace of the dragons, and the two

companies form a bodyguard worthy of the gate of kings and of gods

(Figs. 105 and 106). Along the walls of the Via Sacra marched a

procession of lions, fragments of which have been found and pieced

together. They, too, were in relief, but covered with a fine enamel in

which the colours were laid side by side without the intermission of

cloissons. This art of enamelling is lost, and no modern workman has

been able to imitate the lion frieze.

On the east side of the gate stands the little temple of Ishtar, raised

on a high platform and commanding the city below. The temple is built of

sun-baked brick, probably in accordance with hieratic tradition, which

held to the ancient building material used in an age when the architects

were unacquainted with the finer and more durable burnt brick. Small

courts with side chambers lead into an inner holy of holies, where in a

niche stood the symbol or effigy of the goddess. Behind the sanctuary

there is a narrow blind passage where the priests could lurk behind the

cult image and confound the common folk with mysterious sounds and

hidden voices. The Via Sacra pursues from the gate its stately way,

skirting along the edge of an immense open court that lay between the

palace and the temple of the god Marduk, the patron divinity of Babylon.

The mound in which the temple lies has not as yet been completely

excavated, but a pit sunk in its centre has laid bare the walls of the

entrance court. It will be no easy matter to continue the work here. The

mound was thickly inhabited during the Greek and Parthian periods, and

its upper levels consist chiefly of refuse-heaps. When the workmen cut

down through them to reach the temple gate, the stench of the old

rubbish-heaps, combined with the stifling heat of the pit, was so

intolerable that their labours had to be interrupted for several days

until a breeze arose and made it possible to continue them.

The excavations are carried on all through the summer heats, but the

director, Professor Koldewey, was at the time of my visit paying a

penalty for his tireless energy. He had been ill for some months owing

to his exertions during the previous summer, and to my permanent loss I

was unable to see him. I retain notwithstanding the most delightful

memory of the days at Babylon, of the peace and the dignified simplicity

of life in the house by the river, of the little garden in the courtyard

where Badrî Bey, the delegate from the Constantinople museum, coaxed his

roses into flower and his radishes into red and succulent root; of long

and pleasant conversations with Mr. Buddensieg and Mr. Wetzel, wherein

they poured out for me their knowledge of the forgotten things of the

past; of quiet hours with books which they brought for me out of their

library--and books were a luxury from which I had been cut off since I

left Aleppo. When I rode out of an afternoon one of the zaptiehs of

Babylon was detailed to accompany me. He knew the ruin-field well,

having been the fortunate occupier of a post at the Expeditionshaus for

several years. I would find him waiting in the palm-grove where my

horses were stabled, alert, respectful and less ragged than his brothers

in arms whose pay does not come to them through the hands of European

excavators. One day I asked him to take me to the Greek theatre,

wondering a little whether he would understand the request.

“Effendim,” he said, “you mean the place of Alexander.”

The great name fell strangely among the palm-trees, and from out of the

horde of ghosts that people Babylon strode the Conqueror at the end of

his course. So we rode to the place of Alexander, the theatre near the

city wall, ruined almost beyond recognition, but preserving in the

popular nomenclature the memory of the most brilliant figure in the

history of the world.

And once the clouds gathered as we were riding through the palm-groves

by the river. “Praise God!” said the zaptieh, “maybe we shall have

rain.” He shouted the good tidings to a peasant who drove the oxen of a

water-wheel: “Oh brother, rain, please God!” But it was dust that was

heralded by the darkness, and as we hastened to the great mound of Bâbil

the wind bore down upon us and the parched earth rose and enveloped us.

We left our horses standing with downcast heads under the lee of the

mound and picked our way up the sides between the trial trenches of the

excavators. In a few moments the dust-storm swept past, and we saw the

wide expanse that was Babylon, embraced by gleaming reaches of river and

the circuit of mound and ditch which marks the line of the city wall.

“Effendim,” said the zaptieh, “yonder is Birs Nimrûd,” and he pointed to

the south-west, where, in the heart of the desert, rose the huge outline

of a temple pyramid, a zigurrat. Legend has given it a notable place in

the story of our first forefathers: it was believed to be no other than

the impious tower that witnessed the confusion of speech.

I heard at Babylon some hint of the state of unrest, bordering on

revolution, into which the province of ’Iraḳ had fallen. The German

excavators had been sucked into the outer edges of the whirlpool. Their

workpeople, drawn from different tribes (they had relinquished nomad

life, but the tribal system still held good among them), had caught the

infection of hatred and turned from the excavation pits to the settling

of ancient scores--so effectually that many a score had been settled for

ever, and the debtor came back to his place in the trench no more. Most

of the survivors had been clapped into gaol by a justly incensed civil

authority, and what with death and the serving out of sentences,

Professor Koldewey and his colleagues had suffered from a scarcity of

labour. This was nothing, as I was to learn at Baghdâd, to the confusion

that reigned in other parts of ’Iraḳ, and it was fortunate that I had no

intention of going south from Babylon; at that time it would have been

impossible.

On the way to Baghdâd I was resolved to visit Ctesiphon, but we were

obliged to follow, during the first day’s journey, the Baghdâd road,

re-traversing for some hours the line of our march from Museiyib. Ever

since we had left Kebeisah the temperature had been exceedingly high,

and from Babylon to Baghdâd we travelled through a heat wave very

unusual at the beginning of April. The early morning was cool and

pleasant, but by about ten o’clock the scorching sun became almost

unbearable, even for people so well inured to heat as my servants and I.

As long as we were moving, it was tempered by the breath of our

progress, but if we stood still it burnt through our clothes like a

flame. There was not a leaf or any green thing upon the plain, and the

only diversion in a monotonous ride was caused by a peasant who caught

us up with lamentations and laid hold of my stirrup.

“Effendim!” he cried, “you have soldiers with you; bid them do justice

on the man who stole my cow.”

“Where is the man?” said I in bewilderment.

“He is here,” he answered, weeping more loudly than before, “but a

quarter of an hour back upon the road. An Arab he is; and while I was

driving my cow to Museiyib, he came out of the waste and took her from

me, threatening me with his rifle.”

“The effendi has nought to do with your cow,” said one of the zaptiehs

impatiently--and indeed the sun withered us as we stood. “Go tell the

Ḳâḍî at Museiyib.”

“How shall I get justice from the Ḳâḍî?” wailed the peasant. “I have no

money.”

The rejoinder struck me as correct, and I sent one of the zaptiehs back

with the lawful owner of the cow, telling him to catch the thief if he

were still upon the road and I would give a reward. The zaptieh

re-joined us while we were lunching at the khân of Ḥasua, but he had

not seen the cow, nor yet the thief, and perhaps it was unreasonable to

expect that the latter should keep to the high road with stolen goods

trotting before him. The khân at Ḥasua is large and built on the Persian

plan for Persian pilgrims. We ate our lunch in the shadow of its

gateway, and when we came out the sun struck us in the face like a

sword. There was nothing to be done but to try and forget it; I summoned

Fattûḥ and drew him into conversation.

“Oh Fattûḥ,” said I, “is there any justice in the land of the Ottomans?”

“Effendim,” replied Fattûḥ cautiously, “there is justice and there is

injustice, as in other lands. Have I not told you of Rejef Pasha and the

thief who stole from me £T28?”

“No,” said I, settling myself expectantly in the saddle.

“It happened one year that I was in Baghdâd,” Fattûḥ began, “for your

Excellency knows that I drive the gentry back and forth between Aleppo

and Baghdâd in my carriage, and so it is that I am often in Baghdâd.”

“I know,” said I. “Once you sent me some blue and red belts embroidered

with gold that you had bought in the bazaars.”

“It is true,” said Fattûḥ. “One I gave to Zekîyeh, and the others I sent

by the post for you and for their Excellencies your sisters. Please God

they rejoiced to have them?” he inquired anxiously.

“They rejoiced exceedingly,” I assured him for the fiftieth time; a

present that has to be sent by the post is no small thing, and it would

be matter for consternation if it did not please. “But what of Rejef

Pasha?”

“Rejef Pasha was Mushîr of Baghdâd,” Fattûḥ picked up his tale. “And God

knows he was a just man. Now I had sold my carriage to one who needed it

and gave me £T28 for it, which was a good price, for it was old. And as

I was walking in the bazaars a thief stole the money from me, and when I

put my hand into my pocket, lo, it was empty.”

“Wah, wah!” commiserated the zaptieh.

“Eh yes,” said Fattûḥ. “Twenty-eight Ottoman pounds. Now I had heard

men speak of Rejef Pasha that he was famed for justice, and I went to

him where he sat in the serâyah and said: ‘Effendim, I am a man of

Aleppo, a stranger in Baghdâd; and a thief has stolen from me £T28. And

there are many here who can speak for me.’ Then Rejef Pasha sent into

the bazaars and all the thieves he arrested.”

“Did he know them all?” I asked.

“Without doubt,” replied Fattûḥ. “He was Mushîr. And some he questioned

and let them go, and others he caused to be beaten upon the soles of

their feet with rods, and them too he released, until only three men

remained, and then only one. And Rejef Pasha said: ‘This is the thief.’

Then they cast him upon the ground and beat him many times, and every

time when they had beaten him till he could bear no more, he cried out:

‘Cease the beating, and I will give back the money.’ But when they

ceased he said he had not so much as a mejîdeh. Then one of the soldiers

caught him by the leg to throw him to the ground, and the man’s garment

tore in his hand, and out of it fell £T26 and rolled upon the floor. But

two pounds he had eaten,” explained Fattûḥ. “And Rejef Pasha cast him

into prison. And when I was next in Baghdâd he was still in prison, and

I visited him and lent him £T1, for he was very poor. And we ate

together.”

“Did you see him again?” said I, deeply interested in this simple

history.

“Eh, wallah!” replied Fattûḥ. “I met him in Deir, and there I feasted

him in the bazaar. And now he lives in Deir, and I go to his house

whenever I pass through the town, for we are like brothers. But he has

not returned me the pound I lent him while he was in prison,” added

Fattûḥ regretfully.

“Mâshallah!” said the zaptieh. “Rejef Pasha was a good man.”

“But I will tell you another tale of Rejef Pasha, better than the last,”

pursued Fattûḥ, drawing, with the perfect art of the narrator, upon yet

choicer stores of his memory--or was it of his imagination? “Effendim, I

had a friend, and he hired from me one of my carriages that he might

drive a certain daftardâr from Aleppo to Baghdâd. Now at Ramâdî the

daftardâr spent two nights in the house of the son of his uncle, and

when they reached Baghdâd the daftardâr searched in his box for the gold

ornaments of his wife, and, look you, they were missing. And they cost

£T60. Then the daftardâr said that the carriage driver had stolen them,

and he caused him to be imprisoned for a period of three years. And soon

after, I came to Baghdâd and inquired concerning my carriage; and a man

in the bazaar told me that which had befallen, but I did not believe

that my friend had stolen the gold ornaments of the daftardâr’s wife.

And the man in the bazaar said: ‘You are his friend, and moreover you

are a walad melîḥ, a good lad, and he has a wife and two little children

in Aleppo. You will not let him starve in prison.’ And when I heard him

call me a walad melîḥ and thought upon the children in Aleppo, I went

away and sold my two carriages for £T60, and set my friend free. And

then,” Fattûḥ continued his gratifying reminiscences, “I went to a

scribe in the bazaar and gave him half a mejîdeh. And your Excellency

knows that a scribe charges one piastre. And I said: ‘Take this half

mejîdeh and write a letter to Rejef Pasha that shall be worthy to be

sent to the Sultan and explain to him the whole matter.’ So the scribe

wrote the letter, and I took it to the serâyah. Then Rejef Pasha called

me before him, for he had not forgotten me, nor the £T28 that were

stolen by the thief. And he said: ‘My son, do not fear. I will get back

your money if I have to pay from the treasury of our Lord the Sultan.’

And he sent for the daftardâr and rebuked him for committing a man to

prison without evidence, for he said that without doubt the gold

ornaments had been stolen at Ramâdî. And the daftardâr paid me back

£T60. Never was there a pasha like Rejef Pasha,” concluded Fattûḥ. “He

feared none but God. God give him peace--he died a year ago.”

Late in the afternoon we came to Maḥmûdîyeh. The baggage got in

half-an-hour afterwards, and found me established in the upper room of a

khân which Jûsef had noted down as he passed through on his way to

Kerbelâ as “the very place for our effendi.” The room was cooler than a

tent, and to sit in the shade and drink tea seemed to me to be the

consummation of earthly happiness. My lodging opened on to a flat roof

on which I dined, and realized that the more intolerably blasting the

day, the more perfect was the soft and delicate night. The khânjî, when

he heard that we were bound for Ctesiphon, declared that the Tigris was

in flood and the road under water. We stood aghast, seeing a second

enemy flow into the field just as we had circumvented the first, but a

Kurdish zaptieh (his name was ’Abdu’l Ḳâdir) stepped up with a smart

salute and bade us take courage, for he would lead us to Ctesiphon. He

was as good as his word; there was, in fact, no water on the road. We

reached the mounds of Seleucia in three hours, and in another half-hour

camped by the Tigris under the ruined wall of the Greek city. The

Tigris, where we came to it, was a mighty stream and a well-conducted.

It flowed solemnly between its low banks, which it did not attempt to

overstep, in spite of the fact that the snows were beginning to melt in

the Kurdish hills and the river was in flood. A belt of cultivation ran

like a narrow green ribbon beside it, intersected by a network of

irrigation canals which were fed by a regiment of jirds along the bank.

The whole area of Seleucia was covered with corn, but half-a-mile inland

the relentless desert resumed its rule, for the crops that had been sown

beyond the irrigation streams, in expectation of the usual sprinkling of

winter rain, had never sprouted. Out of the cornfields rose the mounds

of Seleucia, the capital of the Seleucid empire, which for two hundred

years after the death of Alexander embraced Mesopotamia, North Syria and

a varying part of Asia Minor. Of all cities in Turkey, Seleucia is

perhaps the one which would yield most to the spade of the excavator.

The Greek civilization of the Diadochi has given up few of its secrets

in any of the regions where the generals of Alexander cut their empires

out of the fruits of his victories, but in Mesopotamia we are completely

ignorant of what the Greek conquest may have meant in the history of

architecture and the lesser arts. We know only that at the end of the

period of Greek rule the arts emerged profoundly modified, and thus

modified governed the late antique and the early Christian world.

I had no sooner appointed a camping-ground than I embarked on the broad

waters of the Tigris in a basket. The craft that navigate that river are

known in Arabic as guffahs, but I have applied to them the correct

English word (Fig. 110). They are round with an incurving lip, like any

other basket, made of plaited withes and pitched without and within to

keep them water-tight. Their size and the pitch alone differentiate them

from their fellows in the European market, and I readily admit that when

first you are invited to cross a deep and rapid stream in a guffah you

feel a shadow of reluctance. But for all their unpromising appearance

they are stout and trustworthy vessels, and when you have crossed once,

you and your zaptieh and your mares all in the same guffah, and

accustomed yourself to its peculiar mode of progression, you come to

feel a justifiable confidence in it. The guffah cannot make headway

against stream; it must be pulled up the river to a distance

considerably above the point you design to touch on the opposite

bank--the two guffahjîs push off, the basket spins upon its axis, and so

spinning advances, on the principle of the moon’s advance across space,

or, for that matter, of the earth’s; the guffahjîs paddle with a genteel

nonchalance, first on one side and then on the other, and at the end of

all you reach your goal.

My goal was Ctesiphon (Fig. 107). The huge fragment of the palace, which

is all that remains of the Sassanian capital, successor and heir to

Seleucia, lies about half-a-mile from the river on the edge of a

reed-grown marsh. No more of it is standing than the central vaulted

hall (and here half the vault has fallen) and the east wall of one of

the wings (Fig. 108). The second wing has disappeared, and nothing is

left of the rooms on either side of the hall[88] (Fig. 109). Even in

this condition Ctesiphon is the most remarkable of all known Sassanian

buildings and one of the most imposing ruins in the world. The great

curtain of wall, the face of the right wing, rises stark and gaunt out

of the desert, bearing upon its surface a shallow decoration of niches

and engaged columns which is the final word in the Asiatic treatment of

wall spaces, the end of the long history of artistic endeavour which

began with the Babylonians and was quickened into fresh vigour by the

Greeks. Tradition has it that the whole wall was covered with precious

metals. The gigantic vault, built over empty space without the use of

centering beams, is one of the most stupendous creations of any age. It

spans 25·80 metres: the barrel vaults of the basilica of Maxentius in

the Roman Forum span 23·50 metres; the barrel vault that covered the

aula of Domitian’s palace on the Palatine spanned 30·40 metres, but it

has fallen. The Roman vaults were built over centering beams, not over

space on the Mesopotamian system, and the latter, what with the appeal

which it makes to the imagination and the high ovoid curve which it

involves, gives a result incomparably more impressive. In this hall

Chosroes held his court. It must have lain open to the rising sun, or

perhaps the entrance was sheltered by a curtain which hung from the top

of the vault down to the floor. The Arab historian, Ṭabarî, gives an

account of a carpet seventy cubits long and sixty cubits broad which

formed part of the booty when the Mohammadans sacked the city. It was

woven into the likeness of a garden; the ground was worked in gold and

the paths in silver; the meadows were of emeralds and the streams of

pearls; the trees, flowers and fruits of diamonds and other precious

stones. Such a texture as this may have been drawn aside to reveal the

Great King seated in state in his hall of audience, with the light of a

thousand lamps, suspended from the roof, catching his jewelled tiara,

his sword and girdle, illuminating the hangings on the walls and the

robes and trappings of the army of courtiers who stood round the throne.

The pages of the historian who relates the Mohammadan conquest of

Ctesiphon ring still with the triumph of that victory. The Sassanian

capital comprised both the old Greek

[Illustration: FIG. 107.--CTESIPHON, FROM EAST.]

[Illustration: FIG. 108.--CTESIPHON, FROM WEST.]

[Illustration: FIG. 109.--CTESIPHON, REMAINS OF VAULT ON WEST SIDE OF

SOUTH WING.]

foundation on the west bank of the river and the later Persian town with

its palaces on the east bank.[89] Sa’d ibn abi Waḳḳâṣ, the leader of the

army of Islâm, had little to fear from the last of the Sassanian kings,

Yazdegird, a boy of twenty-one, and having entered the western city

(known to the Arabs as Bahurasîr) without striking a blow, he assembled

his troops and, Ḳurân in hand, pointed to the fulfilment of prophecy:

“Did ye not swear aforetime that ye would never pass away? Yet ye

inhabited the dwellings of a people that had dealt unjustly by their own

souls, and ye saw how we dealt with them. We made them a warning and an

example to you.”[90] “And when the Moslems entered Bahurasîr, and that

was in the middle of the night, the White Palace flashed upon them. Then

said Ḍirâr ibn u’l Khaṭṭâb: ‘God is great! the White Palace of Chosroes!

This is what God and his Prophet promised.’”[91]

But the fording of the Tigris was a serious matter, and some days passed

before Sa’d announced to the army that he had resolved to make the

venture. “And all of them cried: ‘God has resolved on the right path for

us and for thee; act thou.’ And Sa’d urged the people to the ford and

said: ‘Who will lead, and guard for us the head of the ford that the

people may follow him?’ And ’Âṣim ibn ’Amr came forward and after him

six hundred men. And he said: ‘Who will go with me and guard the head of

the passage that the people may ford?’ And there came forward sixty.

And when the Persians saw what they did, they plunged into the Tigris

against them and swam their horses towards them. And ’Âṣim they met in

the forefront, for he had neared the head of the ford. Then said ’Âṣim:

‘The spears! the spears! aim them at their eyes.’ And they joined in

contest and the Moslems aimed at their eyes and they turned back towards

the bank. And the Moslems urged on their horses against them and caught

them on the bank and killed the greater part of them; and he who

escaped, escaped one eyed. And their horses trembled under them until

they broke from the ford. And when Sa’d saw ’Âṣim at the head of the

ford he said: ‘Say: We call upon the Lord and in Him we put our trust

and excellent is the Entrusted; there is no power nor strength but in

God, the Exalted, the Almighty.’ And when Sa’d entered Madâin and saw it

deserted, he came to the hall of Chosroes and began to read: ‘How many

gardens and fountains have they left behind, cornfields and fair

dwellings and delights which were theirs; thus we dispossessed them

thereof and gave their possession for an inheritance unto another

people.’ And he repeated the opening prayer and made eight prostrations.

And he chose the hall for a mosque; and in it were effigies in plaster

of men and horses and they heeded them not but left them as they were,

though the Mohammadans do not so. And we entered Madâin and came to

domed chambers filled with baskets; and we thought them to be food, and

lo, they were overflowing with gold and silver. And they were divided

among the people. And we found much camphor and thought it to be salt,

and kneaded it into the bread, until we perceived the bitterness of it

in the bread. And Zuhrah ibn u’l Ḥawîyeh went out with the vanguard and

pursued the fugitives till he reached the bridge of Nahrwân; and the

fugitives crowded upon it and a mule fell into the water, and they

struggled round it greedily. And Zuhrah said: ‘Verily, I believe,

billah, that the mule bears something precious.’ And that which it bore

was the regalia of Chosroes, his robes and his strings of pearls, his

girdle and his armour covered with jewels, in which he was wont to sit,

vaingloriously attired.” ...

In the grey dawn I returned to Ctesiphon. The moon was setting in the

west and as we floated down the river the sun rose out of the east and

struck the ruined hall of the palace.

“Allah, Allah!” murmured ’Abdu’l Ḳâdir, moved to wonder as he watched

the vast walls, in their unmatched desolation, take on the glory of

another day.

We rode up to Baghdâd along the edge of the Tigris, and as we went,

Fattûḥ, who thought little of ruins except as a divertisement for the

gentry, dilated upon the splendours that we were to witness. Especially

was he anxious that I should not fail to see the famous cannon which

stands near the arsenal, chained to the ground lest it should fly away.

“For,” said Fattûḥ, “the people of Baghdâd relate that in a certain year

there was a great battle at a distance of many days’ journey. Now the

soldiers of Baghdâd were giving way before the enemy when one looked up

and saw the cannon flying through the air to their help. And without the

aid of hands it fired at the army of the foe and drove them back. Then

they brought the cannon back with them and chained it by the arsenal,

for they prized it mightily. So I have heard in Baghdâd.”

“And what do you think of the story?” I asked.

“My lady,” said Fattûḥ with a fine show of contempt, “the people of

Baghdâd are very ignorant. They will believe anything. But we in Aleppo

would laugh if we were told that a cannon had flown through the air.”

Every few hundred yards we came upon the deep cutting of an irrigation

canal and our road passed over it airily, borne on the most fragile of

bridges. At first I could scarcely control my alarm as I saw rider and

baggage animals suspended above the gulf, but the horses made light of

it and no one can keep up a fear that is unshared by his comrades. We

were fortunate in finding all the bridges intact, but our good luck

deserted us in the middle of the day, and when we came to Garârah, where

we hoped to cross the Tigris by a bridge of boats, we found that the

bridge had been swept away and the keeper of the toll-house seemed

surprised to learn that we had expected it to stand firm in time of

flood. So we turned wearily round an immense bend of the Tigris and

entered Baghdâd by the Ḥilleh road (Fig. 111). Here the pontoon bridge

had been mercifully spared; it was crowded with folk, and as we pushed

our way slowly across it I had time to offer up a short thanksgiving for

the first stage of a journey successfully accomplished, new roads

traversed, unvisited sites explored, another web of delightful

experiences woven and laid by. At the end of the bridge we found

ourselves in the bazaars and made our way to the British Residency. It

is a pleasant thing to be English and to see the Sikh guard leap to the

salute at the gateway of that palace by the Tigris which is our

much-envied Consulate General. My thanksgiving must certainly have

broken into a hymn of praise when I found that the hospitable Resident

and his wife were expecting my arrival and had prepared for me a room

almost as spacious as the hall of Chosroes.

At Baghdâd I learnt that the rumours of a revolt which had reached

Babylon fell far short of the truth. Two of the Tigris tribes were up in

arms and had effectually blocked all communication with Baṣrah and the

Persian Gulf. They were holding up five steamers at Amârah, together

with a couple of gunboats, which had been sent down to clear the

channel, and over two thousand soldiers. Among the passengers was Sir

William Willcocks, who was at that time engaged on the irrigation

survey, and the disturbance had therefore become a matter of grave

concern to the Resident and to all others who had the interests of

Turkey at heart. During the few days which I spent in Baghdâd, I saw

many people and heard much talk concerning the state of affairs that

prevailed in the delta, and I came to the conclusion that the government

were garnering the ripe fruit both of their inaction and of their

action. On the one hand, the Arab tribes had been allowed to reach an

alarming excess of insubordination. For three years the boats of the

Turkish and of the Lynch Company had been exposed to perpetual danger of

attack, and in 1908 one of the steamers of the Lynch

[Illustration: FIG. 110.--GUFFAHS OPPOSITE THE WALL OF SELEUCIA.]

[Illustration: FIG. 111.--BAGHDÂD, THE LOWER BRIDGE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 112.--BAGHDÂD, TOMB OF SITT ZOBEIDEH.]

[Illustration: FIG. 113.--BAGHDÂD, INTERIOR OF SPIRE, SITT ZOBEIDEH.]

Company had been fired upon and several persons had been killed or

wounded. Nevertheless no attempt has been made to bring the sheikhs to

justice. In remoter districts, even where the land was under

cultivation, the fiction of established government had been for all

practical purposes abandoned. Where the tax-gatherers still ventured to

put in an appearance they were bribed by the Arabs, and little money

flowed through their hands into the imperial treasury, while not

infrequently they did not dare to breathe the name of taxes. “The very

shepherds are armed with rifles,” said one, “and if I were to ask them

to pay the aghnâm, the sheep tax, they would raise their guns to their

shoulders, saying: ‘Take the aghnâm.’” On the other hand, the

authorities had sought to cover their weakness by setting one sheikh

against another and thus fostering disorder. Individual officials had

been guilty of methods of extortion almost unparalleled in the Ottoman

empire, and a well-known sheikh had declared with some reason that to

pay in the arrears which had been scored up against him would be little

better than an act of madness, since the receipt given by one man would

be pronounced invalid by the next and the whole sum would be demanded of

him a second time. While I pondered over these tales, my interlocutor

would generally add: “Wait till you see Môṣul. The vilayet of Môṣul is

worse governed than the vilayet of Baghdâd.”

The one ray of hope for the future sprang from the labours of the

irrigation survey whose leader was lying imprisoned in midstream at

Amârah. “He who holds the irrigation canals, holds the country,” is a

maxim which can be applied as well to Mesopotamia as it was to Egypt,

and it was generally admitted that an irrigation system, justly

administered, would be a better means of coercion than an army corps.

The Arabs depend for their existence upon the river-side crops; the

control of the water and the possibility of turning it off at any moment

would prove an effective check on revolt. Moreover the man who has

something to lose is never on the side of anarchy; prosperity is the

best incentive to orderliness, and prosperity might in time be brought

back to districts which had been for many ages the richest in the world.

The native of ’Irâḳ, gazing upon the empty desert which now meets his

eye, is accustomed to allude proudly to the days when “a cock could hop

from house to house all the way from Baṣrah to Baghdâd,” and the saying

illustrates the fundamental truth that the present poverty-stricken

condition of the land is due not to the niggardliness of nature, but to

the destructive folly of man. The forerunner of effective reform must

always be honest administration, and how was that to be attained where

corruption was as natural as the drawing in of the breath? Even to this,

perhaps the most critical of all the questions that beset the new

government, there seemed to me to exist the germs of an answer in the

growth and free expression of popular opinion. In Baghdâd the public

mind was on the alert and the public tongue was no longer to be

silenced. One day when I went down into the bazaars I heard on every lip

the rumour that a noted Arab from one of the rebellious tribes had

arrived in the town, his hands filled with gold which he was prepared to

transfer to those of a certain high military authority. The next day the

tale was in the local papers, the official was mentioned by name, and if

it were indeed true that the Arab had been sent on the mission with

which he was credited, his distinguished patron would have found it hard

to accept the money intended for him and impossible to carry out his

part in the proposed bargain. But the press, though it was as yet

inefficient enough, was the best asset of the new order. Not even the

most optimistic could assert that constitutional government had taken

deep root in Baghdâd. The local committee was a negligible quantity, and

men of all creeds were persuaded that the revolution was still to come

and that it would come with bloodshed. But it must be added that when

the news of the counter-revolution in Constantinople reached Baghdâd,

not a finger was lifted nor a voice heard to support anything that would

approach to a return to the old régime, and the military authorities of

Baghdâd were among those who telegraphed to the Committee with offers of

assistance when the fate of the latter hung in the balance.

Here as elsewhere the chief bar to progress was the political fatalism

of the people themselves. But amid the universal scepticism there was

one section of the community which showed a desire to profit by the

advantages which had been promised. The Jews form a very important part

of the population, rich, intelligent, cultivated and active. One example

of their attitude towards the new order will be enough to show their

quality. It had been given out that all the subjects of the Sultan would

ultimately be called upon to perform military service; the law (which

has since been passed) had not yet assumed a definite shape and many

were of the opinion that it would be found impossible to frame it. Not

so the Jews of Baghdâd. As soon as the idea of universal service had

been conceived, a hundred young men of the Jewish community applied for

leave to enter the military school so that they might lose no time in

qualifying to serve as officers. The permission was granted, and I trust

that they may now be well on the road to promotion. The Christians

showed no similar desire to take up the duties of the soldier. On the

contrary, all those who were in arrears with the payment of their

exemption money hastened to make good the sum due, that they might show

that they had fulfilled their obligations under the old system and claim

acquittal from those imposed by the new.

I heard these tales by snatches as I explored Baghdâd and tried to

reconstitute the city which had been for five centuries the capital of

the Abbâsid khalifs, a period during which it had witnessed a

magnificence as profuse and destruction as reckless as any others on the

pages of history. Of the original Mohammadan foundation, Manṣûr’s Round

City, built in A.D. 762 on the right bank of the Tigris, no vestige

remains.[92] The site of the great quarters which sprung up to north and

south of the Round City are marked only by the tomb of Sheikh Ma’rûf

and the celebrated Shi’ah sanctuary of Kâẓimein. The west bank is at

present occupied by a small modern quarter, about and below the pontoon

bridge which we crossed when we arrived. As early as Manṣûr’s time a

palace had been built on the east side of the river and the eastern city

gradually eclipsed the western in importance. But it did not occupy the

site of modern Baghdâd; it lay to the north of the present town and the

sole relic of it is the shrine of Abu Ḥanîfah in the village of

Mu’aẓẓam, which is now situated some distance to the north of Baghdâd.

Finally the existing town grew up round the palaces of the later

khalifs, and its walls and gates are the same as those which were seen

and described by Ibn Jubeir in the twelfth century. It no longer fills

the circuit of those walls; between them and the modern houses there are

large empty spaces which were once occupied by streets and gardens. I

drove out one windy morning to the village of Mu’aẓẓam and gazed

respectfully from a house-top at the tiled dome which covers the tomb of

the Imâm Abu Ḥanîfah. He was the founder of the earliest of the four

orthodox sects of the Sunnis and he aided Manṣûr in the building of

Baghdâd. Even in Ibn Jubeir’s time the city had retreated from the

shrine and he describes it as lying far outside the walls, as it does

to-day. We then crossed the Tigris by an upper bridge of boats and

visited the Kâẓimein. Here too a village has sprung up round the

sanctuary which shelters the remains of the seventh and ninth Shî’ah

Imâms.[93] The place is now purely a Shî’ah shrine, though its original

sanctity was due to the fact that somewhere in this region stood the

tomb of Ibn Ḥanbal, the founder of the last of the four orthodox Sunni

sects. His tomb still existed when Ibn Baṭûṭaḥ visited Baghdâd in 1327,

but it fell subsequently into ruin and has now disappeared. No infidel

is permitted to enter a Shî’ah mosque, and it is well not to linger with

too great a show of interest at the gates, so as to avoid the ignominy,

which you are helpless to avert, of being hustled out of the way by a

fanatical crowd. I went therefore to a neighbouring building, the tomb

of Sir Iḳbâl ed Dauleh, brother to the king of Oudh, and begged the

wakîl to allow me to look upon the Kâẓimein from his roof. The wakîl,

the guardian of Sir Iḳbâl’s tomb, was a charming and cheerful mullah,

dressed in long robes and a white turban. He turned a friendly eye upon

me, partly out of the innate sociability of his character, and partly in

view of the fact that I was a fellow subject of his departed master. Not

only did he grant my request, but he presented me with a bunch of

pomegranate flowers and entertained me with coffee and sherbet.

“Why,” said he, “do you travel so far?”

I replied that I had a great curiosity to see the world and all that lay

therein.

“You are right,” he answered. “Man has but a short while to live, and to

see everything is a natural desire. But few have time to accomplish

it--what would you? we are but human.” And he drew his robe round him

and sipped contentedly at the sherbet, repeating as he did so his elegy

on the race: “Insân! we are human.”

With that he turned his attention to the things of this brief world and

gave me his opinion of a high official of the empire. “He is mad,” he

declared, “majnûn.”

“He is a man of books rather than of deeds,” said I, for I knew the

official in question and held him in respect.

“That is what I call majnûn,” replied the mullah sharply.

When I had finished the sherbet I took my leave and went to the tomb of

Sheikh Ma’rûf, who was a contemporary of Hârûn er Rashîd and by origin a

Christian, but having professed Islâm he became noted as the ascetic of

the age and the imâm of his time. He was one of the four saints who by

their intercessions protected Baghdâd, however inadequately, from the

approach of evil. The existing tomb, though it has frequently been

repaired, probably covers the very site of the earliest shrine. It is

surrounded by a large cemetery in which stands a building known as the

tomb of the Sitt Zobeideh, the wife of Hârûn er Rashîd (Fig. 112). The

attribution does not appear earlier than 1718 and is undoubtedly

erroneous. The Princess Zobeideh was buried in the Kâẓimein, her tomb

has long been destroyed and its exact site forgotten.[94] A very cursory

inspection of the architecture is enough to prove that the building near

the tomb of Ma’rûf cannot date from the ninth century.[95] It has been

in great part reconstructed and contains nothing of architectural

interest except the form of its cone-like roof, narrowing upwards by a

series of superimposed alveolate niches or squinches (Fig. 113). I have

never seen any roof of this kind which could be dated as early as the

ninth century.

In the city on the east bank, the modern Baghdâd, by far the most

interesting relic of the age of the khalifs is the line of the enclosing

wall with its gates. The wall itself is largely destroyed, but its

position is marked by a mound and a deep ditch; of the gates the two on

the eastern side are the best preserved. One of these, the Bâb eṭ

Ṭilism, is dated by a fine inscription of the Khalif Nâṣir in the year

A.H. 618 (A.D. 1221) (Fig. 114). It is a splendid octagonal tower, but

the door has been walled up ever since the Sultan Murâd IV, the Turkish

conqueror of Baghdâd, rode through it in triumph in the year 1638. Round

the top of this closed gateway runs a remarkable decoration consisting

of a pair of dragons with the wreathed bodies of serpents (Fig. 115).

They confront one another with open jaws above the summit of the pointed

arch and between them sits cross-legged a small figure with a hand

outstretched into each gaping mouth. The serpent motive is not unknown

in the decoration of Islâm; it appears, as has been said, upon the

gateway of the citadel of Aleppo, where the inscription in dated in the

year 1209. I have seen it upon

[Illustration: FIG. 114.--BAGHDÂD, BÂB EṬ ṬILISM.]

[Illustration: FIG. 115.--BAGHDÂD, DETAIL OF ORNAMENT, BÂB EṬ ṬILISM.]

[Illustration: FIG. 116.--BAGHDÂD, MINARET IN SÛḲ EL GHAZL.]

many a lintel of the churches in and near Môṣul, which are generally to

be dated in the thirteenth century and owe their decorative motives

entirely to the arts of Islâm. There the snakes are sometimes combined

with the cross-legged figure, precisely as at Baghdâd, and frequently

the figure appears seated between a pair of rampant lions. I am inclined

to regard the whole snake-and-figure or lion-and-figure scheme as Inner

Asiatic, possibly it is due to Chinese influence. The seated figure, as

has been noticed by de Beylié,[96] bears a curious resemblance to the

Buddha type, and at Môṣul the affinities with early Buddhist motives are

even more strongly accentuated in the art of the thirteenth century. The

second of the eastern gates, the Bâb el Wusṭânî, consists also of a

domed octagonal chamber outside the wall, connected with the city by a

low bridge, with walls on either hand, that leads across the moat. The

dome, set on eight niches, is a fine piece of construction.

Within the town the traces of the Baghdâd that existed before the Mongol

invasion are woefully scanty. There is a beautiful minaret in the Sûḳ el

Ghazl (Fig. 116) which is dated by an inscription of the Khalif

Mustanṣir in the year 1236,[97] and at the end of the lower pontoon

bridge stand considerable remains of the Mustanṣirîyeh College,

completed by the Khalif Mustanṣir in the year 1233 and now used as a

custom house. A splendid inscription of Mustanṣir runs along the wall

facing the river to the north of the bridge. Behind the wall there are

parts of a court with ruined chambers round it, and to the south of the

bridge I was conducted through another series of chambers which look as

if they had belonged to a bath. The mastery of structural problems shown

by the architects of Islâm in the thirteenth century is nothing short

of amazing. Every trace of decoration has disappeared from the walls of

these buildings, yet the admirable quality of the brick masonry and the

feats performed in the vaulting make the half-ruined halls as beautiful

as a palace. The octagonal rooms are covered by very shallow brick domes

set over the angle on squinch arches of patterned brick.[98] Square

chambers are invariably roofed with four-sided domes, and over long

rectangular halls the four-sided dome again appears, the two extremities

being parted by a span of absolutely flat brick roof which depends for

its solidity upon the excellence of the mortar.[99] Not far from the

custom house is a twelfth-century khân, Khân Orthma,[100] and in the

Khâṣakî Jâmi’ there is a very beautiful miḥrâb cut out of a single block

of stone.[101] Beyond these there was but one other place which I

desired to see. I had read[102] that there existed in the arsenal some

fragments of one of the palaces of the khalifs, beautifully decorated

with stucco, and accordingly I set out in all innocence to visit them.

The arsenal lies at the extreme north end of the bazaar, not far from

the northern gate, and to reach it I passed by the khân where my

servants and horses had found a lodging. Fattûḥ and Jûsef were standing

at the entrance and they gave me a cordial greeting.

“Please God,” said Fattûḥ, “your Excellency has seen the cannon which is

chained to the ground?”

I confessed that I did not know where it was to be found.

“But it is here in the Maidân, close at hand,” exclaimed Fattûḥ, and

hurried out to conduct me to the spot. There it was, sure enough, a

rusty piece of artillery and an ancient, chained to the ground under a

big tree. Fattûḥ gazed upon it with an interest that was not unmixed

with contempt.

“In Aleppo,” said he, “we do not chain our cannon.”

At the arsenal I was received by a polite officer to whom I explained my

errand. He asked me whether I had brought with me a letter from the

English Resident, and I replied that I had not, but that I could easily

obtain one.

“Good,” said he. “If you will return to-morrow with the letter you shall

see all that you will.”

On the following day I returned, letter in hand. I gave it to a sentry

and desired him to convey it to the Commandant, to whom it was

addressed. After a due interval an officer descended the stairs below

which I was sitting; he regretted, said he, that I could not be shown

the palace of the khalifs, it must be for another day. Upon this the

hasty European blood, which no amount of sojourning in the East can

bring to subjection, rose in revolt, and brushing aside (I blush to

relate it) the officer and the sentry, I sprang up the stairs, drew back

a heavy leather curtain and burst unannounced into a room filled with

distinguished military men. They were, I suppose, the Mesopotamian

equivalent for an army council, and if I am not mistaken they were

composing themselves to slumber--the hour was the somnolent hour of noon

and the day was hot. But my advent galvanized them into wakefulness.

They listened with the greatest courtesy to my tale, and when I had

finished, one who sat behind a green baize table pronounced judgment.

“The letter,” said he, “is addressed to the Commandant and may be opened

by none but he.”

“Effendim,” said I, “could it not be given to the Commandant?”

“Effendim,” he replied, “the Commandant Pasha is in his house, asleep,

but if you wish I will send the letter.”

I thanked him and begged him to do so, saying that I would go with it.

The Commandant’s house was a stone’s throw from the arsenal. I was

greeted by a smiling major-domo who said that the Commandant should be

informed of my arrival, and meantime would I please to look at the lions

upon the roof. I agreed to this suggestion--as who would not?--and

together we climbed up to the housetop, where a pair of Mesopotamian

lions, thin, poor beasts, and ill-conditioned, were confined in an

exiguous cage. And they too were spending the midday hour in the

approved fashion. After we had succeeded in rousing them, I was

conducted into the Commandant’s reception-room, where the Commandant in

full uniform awaited me. We exchanged salutations and sat down.

“Effendim,” said the Commandant, “I trust you were satisfied with the

lions.”

I expressed complete satisfaction, mingled with astonishment at finding

them upon his roof.

“They are now rare,” said the Commandant. “I had them captured in the

swamps near Amârah while they were yet young.”

“Effendim,” said I, “I have seen them pictured upon the ancient stones

of the Assyrians.”

“Indeed!” he replied. “They were no doubt more plentiful in the days of

the Assyrians.” At this point coffee was handed to us, and I ventured to

put forward my request.

“Effendim,” I said, “I would now gaze upon the rooms of the khalifs in

the arsenal, if your Excellency permit.”

The Commandant took a moment for reflection and then gave me his answer.

It was in three parts. He said, firstly, that those rooms were much

ruined and not worth seeing, secondly, that they were full of military

stores, and thirdly, that they did not exist. I recognized at once that

I had lost the game, and having thanked the Commandant for his kindness,

I bade him farewell. So it came about that I never set eyes on what

remains of the palace of the khalifs, but I did not realize till

afterwards that the clue to the whole situation had been the military

stores, the most jealously guarded of all the treasures of the Turkish

empire. And upon reflection my sympathies are with the Commandant, the

lions and the military council.

Besides the great shrines at the Kâẓimein and Mu’aẓẓam, there is a

much-frequented place of pilgrimage which lies within the area of the

modern city. It is the mosque and tomb of ’Abdu’l Ḳâdir, the founder of

the Ḳâdirîyeh sect of dervishes, a widespread order which has many

votaries in India. ’Abdu’l Ḳâdir died in Baghdâd in 1253; his tomb was

erected a few years before the Mongol invasion, and is therefore one of

the last of the buildings that fell within the days of the Abbâsid

Khalifate. Connected with the mosque is a large tekîyeh, a house for the

lodging of pilgrims, richly endowed and visited by the pious from all

parts of the world. The ordering of this establishment, the distribution

of its funds and the cares of its maintenance rest upon the descendants

of ’Abdu’l Ḳâdir. The head of the family, who is known by the name of

the Naḳîb, a title of honour applied to the chief of a tribe, is an

important person in Baghdâd, lord of great possessions and still greater

sanctity--important, too, to us, since his tekîyeh is the resort of many

subjects of our empire. As I was strolling through the streets I

happened to pass by the gateway of his house opposite to the tekîyeh.

The Residency ḳawwâs, who was my guide (and very efficient he proved

himself), stopped short and said, “Does not your Excellency wish to

visit the Naḳîb?” Before I could answer he had addressed himself to the

gatekeeper and informed him that a beg who was staying with the Resident

stood at the door, and in another moment I was ushered into the garden

and into the presence of its master. The Naḳîb was taking the air under

his orange-trees. He received me with cordiality and appeared to regard

the introduction of the ḳawwâs as a sufficient basis for acquaintance.

After compliments had passed between us, he gathered his cloak round

him, mounted the stairs and led me into a cool upper chamber furnished

with a divan. “Bismillah!” said he as we sat down upon the cushions, “in

the name of God.” Conversation came easily to the Naḳîb, and the two

hours which I spent with him passed lightly away. Hearing that I was

interested in antiquities he gave me a short sketch of the history of

the world, beginning with the days of Hammurabi and ending with our own

times, during the course of which he proved that all human culture had

originated in Asia. He then turned to a review of the English rule in

Egypt, and I pricked up my ears, for it is not often that a high

dignitary of Islâm will give his impartial opinion on such subjects. He

had nothing but good to say of our administration, and he deplored the

unpopularity into which it had fallen. According to him this

unpopularity dated from the Denshâwî incident. He detailed the events

that had taken place at Denshâwî in the version under which they have

become known to Asia, a version irreconcilable with the facts, though it

was repeated by the Naḳîb in all good faith and with implicit

confidence. He said that the whole Mohammadan world had been outraged by

the story and had learnt from it to distrust the character of the

English. “When you conquered India you won it by love and gentleness”

(oh shade of Clive and Warren Hastings!), “thus showing how excellent

was your civilization; but when we heard that at Denshâwî you had shot

down women and children, we knew that you had fallen from your lofty

place.” I did not attempt to answer these charges; it would have been

useless, for the Naḳîb would not have believed me--and had not some of

my country-people brought similar accusations against their own

officers?--but I would point here a simple moral. It is that Islâm is

like a great sounding board stretched across Asia. Every voice goes up

to it and reverberates back; every judgment pronounced in anger, every

misrepresentation, comes down from it magnified a thousandfold. At the

end of the interview the Naḳîb sent one of his servants with me to show

me the tekîyeh. It is a very remarkable sight. Thousands of pilgrims can

be lodged in the two-storeyed rooms which surround the broad courts, and

men of every nationality were washing at the fountain and strolling

under the arcades. Such foundations as these are the meeting places of

Islâm; here news is circulated from lip to lip, here opinions are

formed, here the Mohammadan faith realizes its unity.

The day before I left Baghdâd was Easter Sunday, Yaum el Âzirah as it

is popularly called, the Day of the Silk Mantles, on account of the

gorgeous garments worn by the Christian women. They walked through the

streets dressed in cloaks of every soft and brilliant hue, woven in

exquisitely contrasting colours. The Greek Catholic church, where I went

to Mass, looked like a garden of tulips, but one of the priests, an

Austrian by nationality, whom I met as I came away, deplored the scene

and said that his congregation thought of nothing but clothes and

adornments. The Catholic community is increasing, so he told me; when he

came to Baghdâd eleven years ago it numbered but 4,000, and now he

reckoned it at 10,000. He proposed that I should see the school, which

was close at hand, and accompanied me thither to introduce me to one of

his colleagues, a French father. It was an exalted moment at the school;

the black-eyed children were sitting in rows upon the floor and eating

their Sunday breakfast. Usually this breakfast consists of the simplest

fare, but on the Day of the Silk Mantles there are bowls of steaming hot

crushed grain and succulent chunks of meat, a feast to satisfy the

children of kings.

With this I returned to the roses and green lawns of the Residency

garden, to dream of brightly-robed women and far-travelled pilgrims, of

the clash and contest of creeds, and of truth, which lies somewhere

concealed behind them all.