Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  February 24th. We have repacked our loads and are off this day on the road to Ramadi.

  To F.B.

  RAMADI, February 27th.

  We did not leave Hit yesterday till one o'clock, having a good deal of repacking to do. Then I rode off with a Zaptieh over the sandy wastes that surround Hit and presently Came in view of Euphrates and put up a thanksgiving at the blessed sight of him. We rode on for three hours til we came to a little valley, full of water after the rains, and then we stopped to direct the baggage animals to the bridge and I heard for the first time the sound of my own caravan bells. We camped a quarter of an hour further under a cliff by the river's edge near a few mean huts of the Dulaim and a patch of green Corn, with the sound of the water wheels in our ears, and the Euphrates lying big and calm under the sunset. There is no river to be compared to him. Neither is it possible to describe the comfort of a fully appointed camp. Praise be to God! as Fattuh frequently exclaims, there is nothing that we lack. we had a march of about seven and a half hours-not very interesting, the familiar barren landscape of the lower Euphrates. All the palm trees have been killed by the snow; there are miserable brown patches instead of the old vivid green. Kubeisa and Hit were scarcely to be recognised. It is a great misfortune. We camped about half a mile outside Ramadi on the Rakkahyyeh road (which we take to-morrow) and Fattuh went off into the town to buy corn and things. I was sitting reading in my tent when suddenly I heard unusual sounds and stepping out saw my muleteers in the grip of about fifteen rascally young men who had picked a quarrel with them, thinking they were alone, I rushed into the fray, feeling rather like the lady in the Nonsense Book (only I had no stick) and soon put an end to the business, for the roughs were alarmed when they saw a European. But after they had gone Mahmud discovered that his watch was missing and Fattuh, presently returning with Government in the shape of a couple of officials, found that a revolver had been taken from one of the saddle bags. So we lodged a complaint but whether the things will be recovered or not I don't know. It is a bore, but wasn't it surprising? A Deleim sheikh who is camped near us came down to offer his assistance and we have two of his men as watchmen to-night as well as two soldiers. So we ought to be all right. Anyhow I shall be less prompt by night for I shall be asleep.

  February 26th. There were no suites to last night's incident except that the Commissaire Effendi (whatever that post may be) paid me a second visit and after offering me his watch and revolver-this was merely formal — begged me not to lodge a complaint with Nazim Pasha of whom they are all mortally afraid, I gave the promise the more readily as I never had any intention of pursuing the offender-no more copy for the Daily Mail if I can help it! Moreover, the combined value of the two things did not amount to thirty shillings. We have taken a short cut to Ukhaidir via Rakkahyyeh; it saves at least a day, probbably two. Our path lies through the most pitiless desert I have ever seen, a pebbly sand like a hard sea beach, and sometimes not even hard. The pebbles are all water worn; I expect this waste was once the bottom of the sea and I can't help thinking that it had better have remained there, for it is unfit to meet the eye of the sun. The reports about water were extremely varied, there was said to be a salt well at Abu Furukh which the horses would drink and plenty of fresh water in the valley of Roda. We fortunately met a caravan from Rakkahyyeh which said there was no water at Roda (this left me indifferent, for I had made Fattuh fill a skin with Euphrates water, and when we got to Abu Furukh we found a good fresh pool in the sandy water course. I relate this tale in full so that you may realize how difficult it is to get trustworthy information, our two zaptiehs were as ignorant as ourselves. But I am now instructed; I always carry water. So we watered our horses at Abu Furukh and filled five skins for their evening provision. We came into camp among sandhills near Roda and since we have marched nine and a half hours today I think we can only have about eight before us, so we need not fear. It is impossible to get meat; I subsist entirely upon the hen, sometimes in the form of eggs and at other times in that of boiled chicken.

  February 27th. We got up at six this morning and reached Rakkahyyeh at noon. Bidding farewell to our two soldiers, who had been bidden to accompany us only to Rakkahyyeh, we pushed on to Shethatha and got into camp at 4:30 — a long march. While we were pitching our tents the Sheikh of the town sent us an invitation to pass the night in his house and I replied that I was exceedingly grateful, which means No thank you. There is a hot wind and the temperature was 70 at sunset, the highest we have had. We bought a wild duck of a man in Rakkahyyeh marsh, the same appeared for dinner to-night. I said: "Oh, Fattuh this duck is very good. May God conquer her women!" He replied: "how much we laboured With her! She would not cook." "She has turned out well," said I. "A double health!" said Fattuh, "May God destroy her dwelling!"

  March 1st. Yesterday morning broke grey and threatening and presently it began to rain. My men went off to buy necessary provisions in the bazaar while I devoted an hour or two to the darning needle. By the time my caravan was ready it was near noonday and the rain was coming down in torrents. Ukhaidir was only three hours off and I would not stay. It took us however an intolerable four and a half hours, mostly in streaming rain. We plunged for an hour through the slippery paths of the oasis, in mortal danger of tumbling into the irrigation streams, and for the rest of the time we plodded through the Soppy desert, heavy going for man and beast. The rain had almost stopped when we reached the beloved castle, but we were wet through. I carried a letter to Sheikh Sukheil of the Zagarit, a subtribe of the Shammar, who was camped near the castle, and sent out news of my arrival to his tents. He came at once with some twenty others and found us pitching our tents in the dusk outside the castle gate. We stabled our horses in the great hall, and the Sheikh and three others stayed with us all night as watchmen. This morning we moved our tents into the inner court and put our horses into two vaulted rooms that lead out of it. The pair of Arabs who were our guides yesterday have gone back to Shethatha and we are left with the men of the Zagarit who are extremely friendly and agreeable. I have had a hard day's work correcting a few details in my old plan and beginning the measurements for an elevation. We have three men to watch over us tonight and being within the castle walls I think we are safe from attack — at least I hope so; one is never very safe at Ukhaidir. My friends of last time have left and the castle is empty of all but us. I wish they had cleaned up a little before they went away; it is very dirty.

  March 3rd. I worked for eleven hours yesterday at elevations and had therefore little time to think of anything else. The Zagarit are thoroughly enjoying our visit. They sit in an expecttant circle round Fattuh's tent, waiting for any stray handful of dates or cigarettes that he may give them. They bring their needlework and establish themselves for the afternoon. i found the men of the tribe employed upon some new shirts (of which they stood in great need) when I came in for a hasty lunch. "Don't your women make your shirts?" said Fattuh. "Wallahi, our women do nothing but keep quiet" they replied. And I'm not sure that one can ask more of woman. They came down in the morning, a few of them, to look at me, but they don't interrupt me — I just go on working. This morning we rode out with the Sheikh at 6 o'clock. I went castle hunting and he rabbit hunting. His equipment was the more picturesque for he came hawk on wrist, with his greyhound at his heels. While we were saddling our mares the greyhound foraged about for stray bones; when the hawk saw her eating he was very angry and screamed to her for food, but the sheikh would not let me give him any till we came back. He was a most charming bird. Unfortunately we found no rabbits, but as far as I was concerned the expedition was quite successful, for about an hour from Ukhaidir we came to the old plaster factory, from which I make no doubt they brought the plaster for the building of the castle, all standing and quite interesting. So I planned and photographed it and we got home at ten. The quarry is said to be about an hour in the other direction. The Mudir of Shethatha came with a large party to see how I was getting on — very friendly of him. I handed hi
m and his friends over to Fattuh who entertained them in the proper manner with coffee, After lunch the Mudir came and sat with me for a little and then they all rode away. It was a delicious day, the first fine day we have had here. I made a map of the site with a plain table and though it isn't amazingly good I feel unreasonably proud of it. You see it is the first. My plan of two years ago, on the other hand, is wonderfully accurate. I have corrected one or two mistakes, but they are so insignificant that really they do not matter much. However I have the satisfaction of feeling that one or two points on which I did not feel quite clear are now explained. Also I have done a lot more work at details of construction.

  March 4th. We left Ukhaidir this morning. I wonder whether I shall ever see it again and whether I shall ever again come upon any building as interesting or work at anything with a keener pleasure. We are now bound for Nejef, but you are not to think that we are taking any common road to it. On the contrary, we have cut straight across the desert, for I had heard of a couple of ruins, one at least unvisited, which I longed to see, Sukheil and Nasir. We rode for three hours over intolerable sand, then climbed a low hill and got on to an immense level which was a little better going. At the top of the hill I looked back and saw Ukhaidir for the last time. An hour or so further on we came to the first ruin, Mujdeh which proved to be a very interesting round tower, built of brick and finely wooded. I expect it was a beacon and I should date it somewhere in the 9th century. It did not take long to plan it, and I caught up the baggage horses, lunching on my mare as I went to save time. We saw standing up above the horizon the next ruin, Khan Arsham, so flat is the plain. All the desert was scattered over with the flocks and tents of the Beni Hassan and we found some of the tribe camped under the ruined khan. It was hot, the first hot day we have had, and I was feeling rather tired after eight and a half hours hard marching — but the khan brought back my energies. For it is a really Splendid ruin of I should think the 9th century, about The time of Samarra, and it opens up all kinds of interesting questions as to old roads and as to the date of Ukhaidir itself. I set about the plan without delay and worked on till the light failed and the camp fires of the Beni Hassan gleamed out red all over the plain. It is a wonderful sight the desert in the spring. And this is our last sight of it. To-morrow we return to high roads and soldiers and the rest of it. Well, even high roads, when you must take them, have their advantages, especially in the matter of water. We brought ours from Ukhaidir to-day and the horses are so thirsty after their hot march that there is not enough for me to have a bath. A misfortune! tomorrow, please God. All the Zagarit were very smart this morning in their new shirts. They do not, however hem them up at the bottom, which makes them look rather ragged round the ankles. As we crossed the desert to-day the deserted encampments where the snow had fallen a month ago were marked by the corpses of sheep and donkeys. None of these Arabs had ever seen snow. The Mudir of Shethatha told me that the people there when they woke and saw it lying on the ground, thought it was flour.

  March 5th. The day broke grey and threatening and I was in mortal dread of rain which would have made the heavy desert sand quite impassable. I don't know what we should have done, for we had neither oats nor water, but I suppose we should have got through somehow. However we were not put to the test, for the rain held off. I had still an hour's work to do at the Khan and we did not get off till seven. We parted with two men of the Zagarit and took as guides two men of the Beni Hassan. The map was of course a "perfect and absolute blank" and I had only a hazy idea where we were — and how long it would take us to reach the road. I guessed we must be five hours from the first khan and I was only a quarter of an hour wrong-it took us four and three quarters of an hour to reach it. Our land-mark after the first hour was the Tower of Babel. One of the Arabs sighted it first, an almost invisible speck on the North East horizon, it grew and grew till we could see it rising above a sea of palms, and finally when they were still three hours away we saw the palm trees round Hamad which was an objective. I confessed I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached it and found ourselves upon the Nejef road. Here we parted from the Beni Hassan who had been most cheerful companions. They are better by day than by night. The men of the tents near Khan Arsham roved round our camp all last night and if my men had not kept good watch we should have found ourselves with seriously diminished possessions this morning. The road was almost as sandy and barren as the desert. Nejef and Kerbela are you know the greatest Shiah shrines in the world and the whole of Persia comes on pilgrimage to them. The inhabitants (mostly Persian) are exceedingly fanatical; no Sunni is allowed to live within the walls of Nejef, nor may he enter the great mosque where the Khalif Ali is buried. The road between the two towns is provided with immense khans for the accommodation of pilgrims and by one of them we have camped. Its name is Muzalla; there are a few houses near its walls in a dry canal, soldiers, chickens and most of the other luxuries of civilisation — at least so it seems to us who come to it fresh from difficult travel in the desert. I warned my Sunni muleteers to be on their guard and found that they had forestalled my prudence by becoming Shiahs for purposes of convenience. "My lady " said they, "we heard the men here call upon Ali as we call upon Allah, and when they asked us what we were, we said we were Shiahs come from Aleppo to pray at the grave of our Lord." Muleteers, having a wide experience of men and customs, are generally able to cope with new conditions, and since they don't mind passing as Shiahs, I do not think that my soul need feel the weight of the deception. We are all very cheerful at having got safely through the last few days. They were not easy. And do you realise that I have only been one day on a road since I left Damascus? Fattuh and I feel some satisfaction when we look back on the events of this journey. "We are," says he, "Praise be to God, skilled in travel — God made us!"

  March 6th. We were premature when we rejoiced last night over the end of our desert journey. I had determined to send my caravan into Nejef and to ride out myself to see some curious caves cut in the cliff that forms the western boundary of our old lake, now dry but still called the sea of Nejef. Accordingly I took an Arab as a guide, Sheikh Selman of the Beni Hassan. As we rode out across the desert, he said: "Do you want to go to Rakban?" "What is Rakban?" said I. "it is a castle of the first time" said he "but you cannot reach Nejef from it to-day." In a flash my mind ran out to the Lakhrnid castles which none of us has been able to trace; in another flash I had turned round, stopped my caravan, told the men to buy corn at the khan and to come out with me into the desert. They accepted the order as cheerfully as if I had invited them into a garden. The golden dome of Nejef gleamed at us invitingly on the horizon, but even more invitingly gleamed those delusive castles of Ibn Mundhir. There was a high wind and by the time we reached the cliffs of the Sea of Nejef, it had raised a dust storm. We climbed down them and crossed the floor of the sea in driving sand. Five hours from Musella we reached some water pools, bitter salt but the horses drank there. I meantime lunched hastily and grittily in the unspeakable sand. An hour further we came to a pool less bitter and I left my men to fill the water skins and rode on with the Sheikh. Presently the black mass of the castle appeared in front of us. I plunged on through the sand, reached it and found it to be nothing but a mud-built enclosure, not 50 years old. "Oh, Selman," said I "this castle is not old."

  "Oh lady," he said, "before my beard was grown I saw it here." It said much for the temper of my camp that when my men came in and I told them we had had all our trouble for nothing, no one was angry. So we camped-it was half past three-and I can see that the Lakhmid castles, if any of then, still exist, are not for me. But what was I to do? I could not leave a ruin unvisited.

  To H. B.

  BABYLON, Friday, 10th.

  I have been so busy travelling the last three days that I have put off letter writing till I got here. On the 7th We retraced our steps through the sand as far as Amm el Gharrof and then journeyed by a good firm path along the bottom of the sea to Nejef which we reached at mid-day.
It is a walled town standing on the edge of the cliff of the dry sea and surrounded on the other sides by a flat plain. Above the walls rises the golden dome of Ali's tomb which is the place of pilgrimage of all the Shiah world and outside the walls the town is encompassed on two sides by the graves of the Faithful who are brought from far to be buried here. We pitched our tents on the third side and after I had lunched I went to call upon the Kaimmakam who instructed the chief of the police to take me sight-seeing. But there was little to be seen; I might not go into the mosque, nor even pass very close to the doors of it (even as it was the people eyed me angrily and one man jumped out of the crowd and tried to stop me from going nearer the mosque); the bazaars were without interest, and presently I returned to our tents where I received a number of visitors, sheikhs of the mosque and official personages. At night, however, I came into conflift with the officials who wished to place a guard of thirty soldiers round my tents. I protested with oaths and the guard was withdrawn. The reason for these precautions was that there are nightly disturbances in the cemeteries. The Arabs bring in their dead by night and try to bury them without paying the sum of 10 s. which the town exacts as a fee for every grave; the soldiers shoot at them and they shoot back. We heard this shooting going on, together with the vibrating cry of the women, but we were far from the cemetery and no one troubled us.

  Next day I sent my caravan direct to Kifil and taking an aged soldier with me (he was useless as a guide for he knew The way to nowhere) I rode out for an hour or two south to the ruins of Khawarnek which really was one of the Lakhmid castles. Nothing remains but mounds, but I was interested to see the site. My old zaptieh, Abbas, was extremely conversational, but as he was also toothless it was difficult to understand all that he said. I rode off with a guide, and lunched on top of the Tower of Babel. You know what it was? It was an immense Babylonian temple dedicated to the seven spheres of heaven and the sun god. There remains now an enormous mound of sun-dried brick, with the ruins of a temple to the North of it and on top a great tower of burnt brick, most of which has fallen down. But that which remains stands up, like a finger pointing heavenwards, over the Babylonian plain and can be seen from Nejef to Babylon. I left Babylon with many regrets, then I rode on to Hilleh, meeting my caravan at the gates of the town. And as we rode through the bazaar an officious policeman took upon himself to seize my rifle from Fattuh, saying that the carrying of rifles is forbidden. I went at once to the head of the police and Pointed out that every Arab in the desert carries a rifle and that as we had come through the desert I had to carry arms; Moreover I had permission to do so. But he would listen to no reason so I betook myself to the Kaimmakam and found him to be an intelligent and cheerful soldier from Bagdad who Promised at once to have the rifle restored.