“And don’t know Arabic?”
“No, nor would I speak it if I did, to a Kurd.”
“Then you must be a Kurd, but your language is not ours; where is your country?”
“My country is one you never saw—Persia.”
“Persia!” he exclaimed, and shouted to his neighbours, “Here is a Persian!”
Several collected about, anxious to see me, for it is a curious fact that anywhere along the Tigris above Bagdad no Persians exist, nor ever come, and are greater strangers in this out-of-the-way corner than a Greek.
A CHANGE OF CREW
There was soon a small crowd around, and ignoring my need of dates, the heartier ones took me off to a café, and I was kept there for an hour or two answering questions about Persia, and learning a little about Jazira, the chief feature of which was, according to them, the bridge of boats which crosses the river during the summer only, and a hill upon which the Ark is said to have grounded on its way north to Ararat.[10] I at last escaped, and having purchased dates and rope, was returning to the kalak, when I met our late skipper, who sought me, to say good-bye, as he was returning on foot to Diarbekr.
I was proposing to give him a penknife I possessed, but he saw he had nothing of equal value, and would only accept a handful of dried dates, in exchange for which he gave a cake of sweet bread. He had just received his pay for five days’ hard work, which required skill, experience, and probity, the sum of two shillings. No wonder people employ Kurds in preference to lazy and incompetent Arabs and Turks.
The third day an extra row of skins with three more rafters was added to our raft, and half an hour before we were supposed to start, eight soldiers of a Turkish regiment from Kharput calmly walked on board, knocking the captain overboard, for he would have protested. These creatures, by their behaviour and subsequent cowardice and brutality, disgusted us to such an extent that had we foreseen the annoyance their folly and bestiality would cause, I think we should have all got out and walked from Jezira to Mosul.