By Desert Ways to Baghdad

by Louisa Jebb Wilkins

"What is this?" X would ask one day.

"Mutton," Arten would answer.

"What is this?" she would say the next day, when the identical substance was handed to her.

"Chicken," Arten would answer. And X was perfectly satisfied.

The next day it would be "tinned meat," and it was all the same to her—and to me; but then I knew what a liar Arten was.

His kindness of heart and his desire to please us made it all the more difficult not to be irritated with him when circumstances did not draw out the better side of his nature. It is uncomfortable to despise people in a qualified manner, and I found it impossible to despise Arten unreservedly and therefore happily. There was no doubt that he was a horrible coward. If he had said, "I am a coward—I am afraid," he would have enlisted my sympathy for what it was worth, because I was a coward myself and admired sincerity. If he had even preserved a decent silence on the subject I should have been unable altogether to despise him, for that was the course I pursued myself. But when any real or imaginary danger was past he would come out with assumed and aggressive hilarity, and make tales about it and his prowess, which latter he had already made conspicuous enough by its absence. Yet his position was no doubt complicated: he knew that the Turks in our train despised not only him but his race; there was no one to suggest his courage if he did not do it himself, and, as he was unable to exhibit it in deeds, I have no doubt he saw no other course to pursue but that of publishing it by word of mouth. Moreover, he had suffered personally from bad treatment; the tale was a piteous one. Near his native town of Adana he had a small mill where he ground corn through the season. On one occasion he had done well and was on his way back to his wife and children in the town, carrying his earnings, which were to keep them through the winter. Half way home he was attacked by a band of robbers, who relieved him not only of his gold but of all his clothes. He had to remain in hiding by the roadside until some one passed from whom he could borrow a garment in which to return starved and penniless to his expectant family. Small wonder that the poor man shuddered at the word "Khursus" (brigand) which we laughingly joked about.

"What is it to you?" he said one day; "you have rich relations, kind friends, and a just Government. If you are robbed, justice is done to you. But what can I expect but more abuse and ill-treatment?—and I have a wife and small children into the bargain!"

When he was not posing as a hero, he was posing as a feature in the landscape. This was particularly exasperating, for no amount of pity for his condition would turn him into a picturesque martyr, even in the foreground of ancient ruins. No sooner was my camera produced than Arten produced himself. The only occasion on which I knew him keep out of sight was when I was trying to get a snap-shot of the band of Kurds who held us up on the Tigris. He seemed to have no desire to show himself, although I was considerate enough to invite him to occupy a prominent position for once. His appearance was not calculated to enhance the effect of any picture. He was like a starved black scarecrow dressed up in tight and clerical garments, with a fez on the top—and then there was the nose. He would have made any warm desert scene look cold, as it would not be obvious that he was perspiring, and in any group of picturesque natives he would look ludicrous.

I recall, as I write, isolated moments of exasperation—when, for instance, he sat, singing a hymn, kicking up the dust with his heels, when we were trying to inflate ourselves with worthy feelings on the contemplation of Babylon, awed by the silence and desolation of the scene around us. Or again, how in a fit of nervousness he hurled the whole of our dinner in agitation on the floor, while we, after an unusually long fast, could have cried for food.

But reviewing him calmly at a distance, one remembers a man that one alternately laughed at and pitied; who annoyed one by his transparent faults, but who commanded one's sympathy by his tragic condition, and one's admiration by his cheerful willingness in trying circumstances. A man who was meant by nature to be light-hearted and happy, kind to his fellows, energetic and interested in his work, ambitious for his children; but who fate dictated was to have his spirit quenched, his nature hardened, and mean and cowardly qualities developed owing to the fear, injustice, and poverty in which, like the rest of his countrymen, he was condemned to live.