[69] Rich, Travels in Kurdistan, vol. i., p. 58.
CHAPTER XV
TO BAGDAD
At daybreak I woke, and immediately went to look at the rooms, one of which I required to put my things in. Two were locked, a third and a fourth had the roofs fallen in upon the floor, and a fifth I found I could lock after a little repair, which I effected with a horseshoe nail from the courtyard and a piece of wood broken from another door. I dragged my things in, avoiding the holes in the verandah that looked through into the stable below, and padlocked the door.
The bazaar was not yet open, and as I went out of the caravanserai door the soldiers were just waking, and shouted at me to shut it again after me. I turned to the right down the street, continuing the direction of my journey of the night before, and came out upon the wide beach of the north branch of the loop of the Lesser Zab, which makes Altun Keupri an island. Here I had a good wash and a drink in the cold, sweet water, and ate a scrap of bread I found in my pocket. I was rather hungry, for except for a little bread and half a melon, I had had nothing since the morning before in Kirkuk.
Turning back, I came again into the town and sought a coffee-house, where I might glean some information as to how and where to find a raft going to Bagdad.
There are four coffee-houses in the main street of Altun Keupri, of which the largest and most popular sells only coffee. So I left this on my right, desiring tea, and stayed at another. The attendant told me that to get a kalak—or raft—I must address myself to the people beyond the grain market, and instructed me how to go. The proprietors, he said, were to be seen in a coffee-house by the beach, where the rafts loaded.
So having paid my reckoning, I again went along the little main street to the beach, at which I had washed earlier, but turned to the left outside the town, and keeping along its outskirts came to the grain market, a busy space where heaps of fine wheat lay upon the ground neatly marked with the impression of a spade or some special implement to prevent thieving, and picking my way among these came to two great coffee-houses on the beach of the southern branch of the river. Here under a pleasant canopy of green leaves outside the coffee-house I sat, and, drinking tea, looked about me. There were many Arab kalak-owners here, but the coffee-house proprietor, who spoke Persian, told me of one that would leave during the morning. As I was talking my acquaintances of the previous day entered, the stern father and silly lad, and hearing our talk, said they were upon the same errand, and that we might search together. At this I was extremely grateful, for the stranger in a strange land hails with delight the prospect of a travelling companion.
At the recommendation of the coffee-house keeper we sought, and soon found, one Haji Uthman, a surly Arab, whom we found contemplating the loading of a kalak from the shelter of a canopy of boughs upon the beach. Upon asking him if he had a kalak leaving that morning, he replied in the affirmative, and pointed to one just before him—then turning his back upon us he entered into conversation with a dirty Arab upon some trivial matter. He refused for some time to recognise that we existed, till we turned to go away in disgust, when he shouted over his shoulder that he would give us a passage to Bagdad if we wanted one. The price he quoted as four mejidies a man, and when we protested at this large sum, he again ignored us and engaged himself with other matters. Once again we turned away, and this brought the price down to three mejidies, but it required another rehearsal of the same act to bring him to the proper price, two mejidies. Even then he only consented with the most perfect ill-manners possible, telling us we must sleep on our own luggage and not spread it about the raft on the cargo.
ENGAGING A PASSAGE
He further demanded a mejidie from each of us, which we paid, and told us to go away as quickly as possible and buy ourselves provisions, for the kalak might start in a few minutes, and would wait for no one. Hurried off in this abrupt manner, we separated, each to seek food and luggage. On the way to the caravanserai I hired an old man with a donkey, and together we went to the room and loaded my things on the beast’s back, and entrusting him with the transport and custody of the luggage, I left him to go to the bazaar, where I met the muleteer of yesterday, Umar.