Him I pressed to my assistance, and as he heard that I was leaving immediately, he thought of the most necessary thing, bread, so calling a boy (he seemed to know everyone in the place), he told him to run to his mother and tell her bake a large quantity of bread, and while it was making to have a bag made to put it in. We then turned our attention to the purchase of anything else the bazaar could supply for the journey, and found the only lasting fruit to be small pears. After much haggling we decided upon the goods of a certain man, and asked for a huqqa of them, and in view of the fact that we were thus purchasers on a large scale, were allowed to inspect each pear before accepting it. So we joined in together in the task, biting one here and there, feeling each and examining it for bruises and rot, and after what seemed an hour, having made our version of the weight agree with that of the seller, poured our purchase into a handkerchief, and set forth to find cheese. Various kinds we saw and tasted, unsavoury lumps of what would appear to be grey stone, and chose some the vendor swore was at least a year old, and so warranted not to deteriorate with keeping. To eat such, it must be soaked in water for half an hour to soften it and expel some of the salt with which it is impregnated. We poured the cheese in with the pears, and my food for the journey—when I should have my bread—was complete, and I should have laid out, fare included, about four mejidies (or thirteen shillings) for a journey of eleven days to Bagdad.
All things being now ready, except the bread, we returned to the coffee-house, the terminus, so to speak, for all kalaks, and called for tea. While discussing this, I heard “Ghulam Husain,” and was joined in a moment by a tall Arab, who had accompanied me on the journey in the spring to Sulaimania. Now I was not certain whether Umar knew what I purported to be, and was glad that the old man and his son were not present, for they knew me for a Christian, and to appear in a false light before either them or the Arab would have been very undesirable, particularly as the latter was an extremely fanatical fellow, with whom I had had many a religious argument on the right of Shi’a and Sunni.
He ran upon me, and embraced me with the greeting of Islam, a kiss upon either cheek, and talking in a loud voice in Turkish, began to ask me where I had been, and what doing. All the time I was keeping a weather eye lifting for the old man and his son, and endeavoured to get away, but the Arab refused to let me go, saying that by a chance God had thrown us together and we must not lose the time thus given us for brotherly conversation. And so he held me talking, speaking of Shiraz and Persia, subjects that attracted the idle in the vicinity, making us the centre of a listening group. In the thick of it a kalak-man came running to say that they were just leaving, and it occurred to me at the same moment that I had not yet got my bread, so entreating him to wait a few minutes I rushed off, glad to get away from the Arab, and full of the new fear of being left behind to kick idle heels in Altun Keupri for another week or so.
My shoes I had left on the kalak to mark the particular bales which I claimed as my place, and I ran through the streets of Altun Keupri, my feet scorching on the hot earth. I was wearing my old dressing-gown and a Kurdish headgear, a distinguished costume, and as I ran the tail caught between two donkeys’ pack-saddles, and I left half a yard behind. Sweating, I arrived at the door of the baker, to find the housewife counting out the flaps of bread and putting them into a bag. I snatched it up and threw it across my back, astounded at its weight and bulk; and still wondering how I could ever eat this mountain of bread, I stumbled out of the yard, regardless of the good woman’s cries to count the bread, and arrived at the beach just in time to get myself and my load aboard by wading through four feet of water, and mark my Arab friend emerging from the coffee-house to bid me a farewell that he shouted as he ran. The current was full here, though, and we were soon carried beyond earshot, and my attention was drawn to my immediate surroundings by the congratulations of the old man, who had installed himself at the opposite end of my row of bales, and sat viewing my torn skirts with sympathy.
LEAVE ALTUN KEUPRI
For a half hour or so I was occupied in arranging a place upon the bales, spreading my cotton quilt under me, making a pillow of my bread, trying to arrange some means of forgetting that under me was not even level ground, but what I have called bales, bundles of knobby sticks of the hardest and spikiest wood on earth, I was sure, being taken to Bagdad for sale.
This I managed to a certain degree, and at last sat quiet to fry under the August sun, in a breathless day—and feel the sweat running down. The raft turned round and round slowly, veritably roasting us all like kebabs on a skewer. The temperature in these quiet reaches of the river between low red hills was immense, and to think of it was but to remember that worse was certainly to come when we reached the Mesopotamian plains.
About an hour before sunset we tied up at a little village of Kurds where we were to take more loads of roots, and all our nice arrangements were upset, for we had to take our goods ashore to allow of the shifting of cargo. The place was at the end of a long, still reach of the river; and entrusting my goods to the old man, I retired to a secluded spot and indulged in a bathe, the first swim I had taken for a year, and the first bath of any sort for well over a month.
We ate our simple meals of bread and fruit there upon a stony beach, and lay down to sleep upon the pebbles until early morning. And so for three days we progressed, our way winding among low hills along the picturesque Lower Zab through an almost deserted land. That we had left Kurd and Turkoman behind was now evident, however, for we saw none but Arabs, and very few of them.
At intervals along the bank would be tiny patches of cultivation of melons, where the falling summer river left a damp bank of silt, and occasionally the owner would be there tending the fruit, but often enough we would not see any signs of habitation for miles and miles near a cultivation, which seemed ownerless and deserted. The day heat was intense. As the river was too low to navigate at night, we were enabled to sleep on the banks, and early morning saw us once more afloat enjoying the half-hour of light before the sun rose. Then, too, two hours followed of cool, the breeze overcoming the sun’s heat, but during the morning this would drop, and we floated unsheltered from a sun that seemed to scorch the bare flesh, and sent the perspiration rolling down among the hair and into the eyes. Then one afternoon, following a day during which we had been nearing a forbidding and perpendicular ridge of mountain, we spun round a corner, across a bar, and out into a very lake—the Tigris—which crept round a great bend and flowed under the Jabal Hamrin range, a barren and desolate mountain that harboured nought but Jabaur Arabs. Now we tied three of our small rafts together, and there would be no more nights ashore. Till we got to Bagdad we must sleep on our bundles of roots, and bear the ever-increasing heat through days of still slower progress.