The cinema also exercised a great influence on the native mind. Never quite understanding its working, he accepted it all philosophically as part of the travelling outfit of that strange race of infidels from far away who had chased the Turks from the shores of the Arabian Sea, who seemed to be able to make themselves into birds at will, and who rushed over the roadless desert in snorting horseless carriages. Men such as these were capable of anything, and when the first cinema film arrived, the Arabs filled to overflowing the ramshackle building which served as a theatre. In Basra I often went to the cinema, not so much for the show itself as to watch the joy with which that primitive child of nature, the Arab, followed the mishaps and triumphs of the hero through three reels. How they were moved to tears by his sufferings! And how they shouted with joy when the villain of the piece was hoist by his own petard and his career of rascality abruptly and fittingly terminated!
One thing, I found on talking to some of these native onlookers, puzzled their minds exceedingly, and that was the morals and manners of European women as shown on the screen. The Arab is a fervent stickler for the conventionalities, and it was a great shock to his religious scruples to see women promenading in low-necked dresses with uncovered faces, frequenting restaurants with strange men not their husbands, and imbibing strong drink. "The devil must be kept busy in Faringistan raking all these shameless creatures into the bottomless pit!" said one Arab to me, when I asked him what he thought of the cinema. It was useless to seek to explain that cinema scenes did not represent the real life of the Englishman or the American, and that all our women do not earn their living as cinema artists.
In Basra I never saw a Mohammedan woman frequenting a cinema performance. Even had she won over her husband's consent to such an innovation, public opinion would veto her presence there, and she would not be permitted to look upon this devil's machine illustrating foreign "wickedness."
CHAPTER IV
AT A PERSIAN WEDDING
Visit to the Sheikh of Mohammerah—A Persian banquet.
A few miles below Basra, on the Persian shore, at the point where the Karun River joins the Shatt el Arab, are the semi-independent dominions of the Sheikh of Mohammerah. His territory is part and parcel of the moribund Persian Empire, but the Sheikh has long held independent sway, and has ruled his little kingdom with Oriental grandeur and benevolent despotism. He is a firm and convinced friend of the British, and even at the darkest hour of our military fortunes in the Gulf, when it seemed as if we might be driven from the lower Tigris itself, the Sheikh was proof against Turkish intrigue and the corrupting influence of Hun gold.
His Excellency the Khazal Khan, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E., to give him his full title, like most Persian potentates in the tottering, crumbling Empire of Iran, where the writ of the present "King of Kings" does not run beyond the walls of Teheran, held undisputed sway over his little state, and his authority was enforced by a nondescript army of retainers. But he was a generous host, a firm friend, and an unforgiving enemy.