Here our crew were paid off and another couple taken over; the process of handing over being to count everything on board, passengers included, when the new man, entering into possession, looked around and was expected to carry out all necessary repairs, or rearrange cargo and passengers as suited. He wasted no time, and plunged into the chilly water, pulling out deflated skins, blowing up others, replacing faulty ones, and tidying up generally till sunset.
We were to have started next morning, but again the weather came on, and a worse downpour than ever drove all the loafers away and left us forlorn upon the beach, whence we retired to a hole in the ruined wall of the old citadel.
Jazira, or Jazira ibn Umar, once important, is now but a large and excessively filthy and ruinous village, peopled by Arabs, Kurds, Turks, and Christians of various kinds. Its importance is evidenced by the existence of some police, and we were soon made aware of their existence.
When we first arrived, as we were short of a few odds and ends, I went and explored the bazaar, which is good and well stocked, considering the size of the place. There is also a public bath, into which I put my nose and fled. The bazaar sells rope (for which the place is locally famous), dates, desiccated cheese, dried fruit and raisins, and the usual imported articles. I wanted dates, I remember, and had a curious time getting them, for the inhabitants, mostly Kurds, would not believe that I was anything but a Turk, fez and overcoat being inseparably connected with that race in the minds of a people who dress in pegtop trousers of native cloth, shirts of the same, and felt waistcoats.
I had acquired sufficient Turkish to speak by now, but Kurdish came more easily off my tongue, so at the first shop I reached, where I saw dates exposed for sale, I asked the price in Kurdish, and was answered in Turkish. Mentioning the price I professed to be ready to give, I received the assurance of its impossibility in Turkish, with an assertion, not made without pride, that the speaker knew that tongue.
“Very good,” said I; “but I don’t.”
“How? do you only know Arabic, then?”
“No, I don’t know Arabic; you must talk Kurdish.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Diarbekr and Aleppo and the cities of the West.”