ON THE EUPHRATES
While gliding down the fourth Bible river, the Euphrates, the moon came up and seemed to turn its soft face upon the silence and as I began singing "Old Black Joe," the jackals along the shore joined in, possibly thinking by my voice that we were all descendants from one father. All were soon asleep but the oarsmen and myself, and I became lonesome as I thought of the days of the Aecadian priesthood, the Babylonian kings, Ezekiel and his people, Alexander the Great, who died here, all felled by the sickle of the reaper, Time, and here in silence I seemed to ask, "Where have they gone?"
We arrived at Babylon at three o'clock in the morning, when I was given the bed of Mr. Nelson, the hospitable German explorer, and the next morning we took in the ruins, and slept in Hille the next night. The following day we rode on donkeys to Burr's Nimrod, a wonderful ruins built of pot-shaped bricks, each weighing several tons. The tower or temple Ziggurat must have been built at the top of an artificial mountain on the plain, about seven or eight miles from the ruins of Babylon. Many think that the ancient city like Nineveh extended beyond Burr's Nimrod. From Burr's Nimrod on camels we rode to Chuffel, a village on the Chebar River, where we entered Ezekiel's tomb, of which the Mohammedons allow no Jew to enter. Still around the open space there were several tents occupied by orthodox Jews, who had come from afar to worship at the shrine of their beloved ancestors.
ON THE SHAT-EL-CHEBAR
At Chuffel our trouble began. The Sheik would not let us stay over night in the town, we had no tent, even if we had dared to sleep in the open, and the next city, Koofa, was open only to Mohammedans, on their way to Nazzip with their dead. I began to laugh, which provoked even Moses, but we soon found relief in a man with one wall eye, minus a hat, shoes or pants, who with his helpers was accustomed to conduct funeral parties down the Chebar River to Koofa. He held us up for the enormous sum of one silver dollar for the ride, and for another dollar would venture to land us in the corpse room at Koofa, that is if it was not already occupied by other corpses. Again I smiled as I thought what would my son Arthur say if he could step into this boat just now and learn of the encouraging prospects. Moses and his helpers now became a trifle alarmed at the situation, and while we were eating our chicken, fried in camel's tallow, I kept laughing, which made Alkar mad, and he remarked to Moses that he believed I was a fool, traveling on borrowed money.
After the owner of the boat and his helpers had paddled us down the river until about ten o'clock at night, we hove in sight of a few dim lights, which made me scratch my head a trifle, when I learned it was Koofa. My men were all wearing a sort of sickly grin since we had learned that the Sheik of Koofa had never before been imposed upon in this way, and I was beginning to feel that there might have been a trifle of virtue in Consul Hurner's advice, but I slapped Moses on the shoulder and said, "The metal in a man shows up only in cases of an emergency," to which he smiled complacently, as though he had been assured that he had all night to live.