path have been destroyed by the depredations of the stream.[126] We camped that night six and a half hours from Tekrît, near a ḳishlâ which has recently been built at the expense of a very beautiful khân. The ḳishlâ represents a spasmodic attempt on the part of the government to control the tribes; it holds from forty to fifty foot soldiers, who, since they are unmounted, cannot pursue or punish the marauding Arabs. The walls of Khân Khernîna, a magnificent Mohammadan building of the finest period, have therefore been laid low to no purpose, and the soldiers lead a miserable and useless existence in the ḳishlâ, which has been erected out of its bricks. The khân is now so much ruined that I did not attempt to plan it. It is a rectangular enclosure with round bastions in the walls, and fine gateways covered with pointed arches. Along the south side stretches a vaulted corridor, interrupted towards the middle of its length by a chamber which has served as a mosque. This chamber contains a miḥrâb decorated with exquisite arabesques in stucco; of the inscription which was placed beneath the pointed arch only a few letters remain ([Fig. 131]). The barrel vaults of the corridor, corbelled slightly forward from the wall and built without centering, are splendid examples of Mesopotamian brick construction. The roof of a small chamber at the south-east angle, and the four-sided dome of the mosque, show the singular arrangement which I had noticed at Baghdâd of a flat piece of masonry laid over the summit of the vault ([Fig. 132]). A square chamber near the mosque had been covered with a dome, and in one corner a squinch arch, decorated with a tiny ornamental arcade, is still standing ([Fig. 134]). On the flanks of the barrel vaults I observed the same system of tubes which exists at Ukheiḍir ([Fig. 133]). The masonry and the plan of the building are closely akin to thirteenth-century work in Baghdâd, and to that period I should assign it.[127]
There is another guard-house thirty minutes further up the Tigris, Sheramîyeh is its name. Here we stopped on the following morning to water our horses, for our road now led us far from the river. A low line of rocky hills, the Jebel Ḥamrîn, borders the west bank for several hours’ journey. It runs crosswise over the desert and the river cuts through it by the Fetḥah gorge. The hills drop sheer into the stream, leaving no space for a path, and caravans are obliged to skirt the western slopes, where there is little water and no settled population, though we saw a few encampments of the Deleim far out in the desert. The cups and hollows of the plain were filled with a scanty growth of grass. We rejoiced over the unwonted sight as if each blade were a separate benediction, and Fattûḥ began to calculate the sums we might save on provender when the horses could be pastured every evening on fresh herbage.
“God is great,” said the zaptieh, “but it has been a year of ruin for poor men. We have not known where to look for food for our horses, and more than that, I have received no pay for six months.”
“Please God the new government will give you your pay,” said I.