We were saved this, for, drawing near the beach, the idea struck our captain to swim ashore with a rope, the distance being some fifty yards. One man’s strength, or two, was patently insufficient, so three of us, the crew and myself, stripped and fell overboard with the rope, notwithstanding the protest against my action from Haji, who thought it infra dig. for an effendi, and even wondered how a person of any comparative importance could be expected to help himself in an emergency. We succeeded in getting a foothold about ten yards from shore, and though dragged along, at last pulled the raft in and tied up.
The whole day we all worked, unloading the raft, repairing and reloading, hindered by the soldiers, who turned up, refused to help, and would have beaten the skipper had we not intervened.
Finally, after accusing us all of stealing a shoe that had fallen overboard, they came to blows among themselves, and, assured that we should be repairing for another three days, left for Mosul, cursing.
Next day we ourselves arrived, weary enough, our raft sinking, and an hour or two after sighting the first garden of Mosul, floated down past the sulphur spring and the old wall of the town to the lower landing-place above the composite stone and boat-bridge, and, calling porters, Haji and I installed ourselves in a caravanserai in the bazaar, having been twelve days en route from Diarbekr.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IV:
[7] He used the words “Sā o spī wakī wafraka lasar” (“Smooth and white, like the snow above”).
[8] This legend is unfortunately flatly contradicted by the spelling of the name. Hasan is not the name with which all travellers in Islamic lands are familiar, but an Arabic word signifying an “impregnable castle,” a name obviously suited to the old castle on its cliff. Oriental students will appreciate the difference on learning that the second consonant is Sād, and not Sīn.
[9] The old Arab name of the place was Ras ul Qawl, and it was in the 11th and 12th centuries under the government of Mardin. It was ceded in A.D. 1263 to one of the Kurdish tribe of Al-i-Ayub (the tribe of Saladin, famous in the Crusades), which was itself related to the great Hakkari tribe residing in these districts. The place has been in the hands of this family and its descendants ever since. Apparently the castle is of a much earlier date, though we are told that the Al-i-Ayub tribe rebuilt it.
[10] There is practically no doubt that the story of the Ark’s journey is as inaccurate as that of Jonah and some other incomprehensible narratives of the Jewish chronicles. Sir William Willcocks, whose work in investigation of ancient waterways in the Euphrates valley will soon achieve fame, has practically proved that Noah was flooded out in an exceptional season that inundated the whole of the flat plains of the lower Euphrates and Tigris, a district now flooded regularly every year. The Ararat upon which he landed was Ur of the Chaldees, situate upon a mound which, above the waste of water—which in flooded seasons looks like an illimitable ocean—would have appeared a considerable eminence. Furthermore, and completely refuting the possibility of a journey to Ararat, is the fact that the strong prevailing wind which blows, has blown for thousands of years during springtime from a northerly direction, would have kept Noah south, even if we can disregard the fact of the rush of water southwards to the Persian Gulf, to say nothing of all the high mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia between Chaldea and Ararat.