Book: A Dweller in Mesopotamia

D >> Donald Maxwell >> A Dweller in Mesopotamia



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A DWELLER IN MESOPOTAMIA

Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden

by

DONALD MAXWELL

With Sketches in Colour, Monochrome, and Line







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| _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ |
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| THE LAST CRUSADE |
| ADVENTURES WITH A |
| SKETCH BOOK |
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| WITH BIBLE AND BRUSH |
| IN PALESTINE |
| [_In preparation_] |
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| THE BODLEY HEAD |
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[Illustration: THE GOLDEN TOWERS OF KHADAMAIN]



[Illustration]



London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street New York: John Lane
Company MCMXXI
William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles, England.




PREFACE


Few adventurous incidents in our lives seem romantic at the time of
their happening, and few places we visit are invested with that glamour
that haunt them in recollection or anticipation. I remember comparing
the colour scheme of a barge in Baghdad with that of one in Rochester.
It was a comparison most unfavourable to Baghdad--a thing the colour of
ashes with a thing of red and green and gold. Yet now that I am back in
Rochester, the romance lingers around memories of dusty mahailas. It is
easy to forget discomfort and insects and feel a certain glamour coming
back to things which, at the time, represented the commonplaces of life.
There certainly _is_ a glamour about Mesopotamia. It is not so much the
glamour of the present as of the past.

To have travelled in the land where Sennacherib held sway, to have
walked upon the Sacred Way in Babylon, to have stood in the great
banquet hall of Belshazzar's palace when the twilight is raising ghosts
and when little imagination would be required to see the fingers of a
man's hand come forth and write upon the plaster of the wall, to wander
in the moonlight into narrow streets in Old Baghdad, with its
recollections of the Arabian Nights: these things are to make enduring
pictures in the Palace of Memory, that ideal collection where only the
good ones are hung and all are on the line.

Although it was for the Imperial War Museum that I went to Mesopotamia,
these notes are not about the War, but they are a series of impressions
of Mesopotamia in general. The technical side of my work I have omitted,
and any account of the campaign in this field I have left to other
hands. The sketches here collected might be described as a bye-product
of my mission in Mesopotamia; but most of them are the property of the
Imperial War Museum, and it is by the courtesy of the Art Committee of
that body that I have now been able to reproduce them.

THE BEACON,
BORSTAL,
ROCHESTER.

_June_ 12, 1920.




CONTENTS

PAGE
I. THE FIERY FURNACE 1

II. THE VENICE OF THE EAST 15

III. SINBAD THE SOLDIER 27

IV. THE WISE MEN FROM THE WEST 37

V. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON 49

VI. ARABIAN NIGHTS IN 1919 67

VII. IN OLD BAGHDAD 89

VIII. PARADISE LOST 97

IX. THE DESERT OF THE FLAMING SWORD 109

X. THE KINGS OF THE EAST 119




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


PLATES IN COLOUR AND MONOCHROME


THE GOLDEN TOWERS OF KHADAMAIN _Frontispiece_

ABADAN, PERSIA, THE OIL QUAYS 4

H.M.S. _MANTIS_, ONE OF THE MONITORS ON THE TIGRIS 12

HOSPITAL HULKS AT BASRA 18

"THE SOLEMN PALMS WERE RANGED ABOVE, UNWOO'D OF SUMMER WIND" 22

THE HOUSE OF SINBAD THE SAILOR, BASRA 24

A BEND IN "THE NARROWS" OF THE TIGRIS 30

A MARSH ARABS' REED VILLAGE 34

MUD HOUSES ON THE TIGRIS 40

A MAHAILA OF THE INLAND WATER TRANSPORT 42

EZRA'S TOMB 44

ON THE EUPHRATES, EARLY MORNING 52

BABYLON, THE EXCAVATIONS AT EL-KASR 56

AN OLD WORLD CRAFT: A TYPE OF BOAT UNCHANGED SINCE THE DAYS OF
SINBAD 60

BELLAMS UNDER SAIL 62

BABYLON THE GREAT IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN 64

A STREET IN KHADAMAIN 70

MOONLIGHT, BAGHDAD 72

A NOCTURNE OF BAGHDAD 74

MAHAILA AND MARSH ARAB'S BELLAM 80

A MOONLIGHT FANTASY: KUT, FROM THE RUINS OF THE LICQUORICE FACTORY 94

DAWN AT AMARA 100

A BACKWATER IN EDEN 102

PUFFING BILLY ON THE TIGRIS 106

SUNSET ON THE TIGRIS 112

SHEIK SAAD AND THE PERSIAN MOUNTAINS 114

HIT, KNOWN TO THE ARABS AS THE MOUTH OF HELL 116

A BRITISH CRUISER IN THE PERSIAN GULF 122




LIST OF LINE SKETCHES


ABADAN 2

"SERRIED RANKS OF TALL IRON FUNNELS" 6

SHIP LOADING WITH OIL 7

"A MYSTERIOUS-LOOKING FURNACE TOWER" 9

"CRUDE STEAM ENGINES EVOLVED BY TITANS WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG" 11

IN ASHAR CREEK 16

SUNSET, OLD BASRA 21

DHOWS, BASRA 26

MONITOR "MOTH" AT BASRA 28

THE SIRENS OF THE NARROWS 33

NOAH'S ARK, 1919 36

UPWARD BOUND ON THE TIGRIS 38

HILLAH 47

CTESIPHON 50

ANCIENT IRRIGATION CHANNEL NEAR HILLAH 55

TOWER OF BABEL. FIG. 1 57

THE TOWER OF BABEL 59

TOWER OF BABEL. FIG. 2 60

TOWER OF BABEL. FIG. 3 61

GOUFAS ON THE TIGRIS 68

"A MAGIC VIGNETTE OF PALMS, EASTERN BUILDINGS, AND A LARGE
SOUTH-WESTERN RAILWAY ENGINE" 77

"SUDDENLY WE CAME UPON A SCENE OF STRANGE BEAUTY AND DRAMATIC
EFFECT" 79

"BY GARDEN PORCHES ON THE BRIM, THE COSTLY DOORS FLUNG OPEN WIDE" 82

"ALL ROUND THE FRAGRANT MARGE, FROM FLUTED VASE AND BRAZEN
URN, IN ORDER, EASTERN FLOWERS LARGE." 83

"BY BAGHDAD'S SHRINES OF FRETTED GOLD, HIGH-WALLED GARDENS, GREEN
AND OLD." 85

SHOWING THE SIMPLICITY OF MESOPOTAMIAN DOMESTIC
ARCHITECTURE. TIGRIS 88

BAGHDAD 90

"PUFFING BILLY" IN BAGHDAD 91

A BIT OF OLD BAGHDAD 93

"BLOSSOMS AND FRUIT AT ONCE OF GOLDEN HUE APPEARED, WITH GAY
ENAMELLED COLOURS MIXED." 98

"HIGH, EMINENT, BLOOMING AMBROSIAL FRUIT OF VEGETABLE GOLD." 105

THE WALLS OF HIT 110

HIT 120

SAMARA 121




I

THE FIERY FURNACE

[Illustration: Abadan.]

[Illustration]




THE FIERY FURNACE


There is an unenviable competition between places situated in the region
of Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf as to which can be the hottest.
Abadan, the ever-growing oil port, which is in Persia and on the
starboard hand as you go up the Shatt-el-Arab, if not actually the
winner according to statistics, comes out top in popular estimation. Its
proximity to the scorching desert, its choking dustiness and its
depressing isolation, are characteristics which it shares with countless
other places among these mud plains. But it can outdo them all with its
bleached and slime-stained ground in which nothing can grow, its
roaring furnaces and its all-pervading smell of hot oil.

Across the broad waters of the Shatt-el-Arab there stretches a lonely
strip of country bounded by a wall of palm-tops. Like all the land here
it is cultivated as long as it borders the river and thickly planted
with date groves. Then lies a nondescript belt that just divides the
desert from the sown, and then, a mile or so inland, scorched and
unprofitable wilderness.

Into this monotonous spiked sky-line the sun was wont to cut his fiery
way without much variety of effect every evening, and night rushed down,
bringing respite from this heat; for it is happily one of the
compensations of life in these parts that the nights are cool, however
hot the day.

About 150 miles from this busy spot lie the oilfields of the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Two adventurous iron pipes start courageously
with crude oil and conduct it by or through or over every obstacle from
these wells to Abadan. In the early days of the war great and successful
efforts were made to protect this line of supply, which was of vital
importance to the British Navy. The Turks lost Fao, the fort that
commanded the entrance to the Shatt-el-Arab, within a few days of the
opening of hostilities. They had imagined it such a formidable obstacle
to our approach that they were thrown suddenly on their beam ends when
we took it. Consequently they could not keep us out of Abadan, but fell
back on Beit Naama vainly attempting to block the river by sinking
ships. One of the hulks, however, swung round and left a channel
through which a passage was simple. I once sketched some of these old
ships as they lay throughout the period of hostilities. Since then they
have been partially blown up. A divers' boat was at work when I made my
drawing and the first charge was fired about three minutes after I had
finished, removing the funnel and one mast of the principal derelict.

[Illustration: ABADAN, PERSIA, THE OIL QUAYS]

Well, to begin my story.

It was evening. The sun was setting in the orthodox manner described
above. Abadan was looking very much as usual. The smoke was smoking, the
pumps were pumping, the works were working, and all the oilers along the
quay, like all well-behaved oilers, were oiling.

As if to protest against the frankly commercial atmosphere of everything
and everybody at Abadan, a dhow that might have belonged to Sinbad the
Sailor himself was making slow headway before the failing breeze under a
huge spread of bellying canvas--an apparition from another age, relieved
boldly against the dark hull of a tank steamer.

The flood tide had spent itself and the river seemed unusually still as
twilight deepened and the many lights of the works wriggled in long
reflection in the water. A spell of enchantment seemed to lie over
everything, and the faint purring hum from the distant oil blast
furnaces pervaded the still air. Old Sinbad came to anchor and night set
in.

This is all very peaceful and picturesque to write about now, but at the
time I was in a motor boat that had left Mahommerah to take me for a
run and it had broken down and seemed unlikely to start again in spite
of all the coxswain's efforts. Consequently we were drifting about on
the stream and likely to be swept down by the ebb tide. We were
unfortunately on the far side of the river from Abadan, and consequently
our plight would not be observed from the works. The situation was not a
pleasant one because we stood a very good chance of being run down by
some incoming steamer.

[Illustration: "Serried ranks of tall iron funnels."]

When it was clear that we should drift down below the region of the oil
quays I thought we would see what our lungs could do. Timing our shouts
together, the coxswain and I, we sent up a tremendous hail to the lowest
of the piers. Again and again we startled the night, until at last we
heard an answering hallo.

In a few minutes a motor-boat bore down upon us. It was the British Navy
in the shape of an engineer lieutenant commander. He took us in tow,
carried me off to his bungalow, arranged about the boat being berthed
and looked after till the morning, and proved a most cheery soul full of
good looks and given to hospitality. When I explained my job he roared
with laughter.

"Just the right time to arrive," he said. "Subject one, Abadan at night
complete with tanks; subject two, works, oil, one in number--sketched in
triplicate--why, my Lords Commissioners will be awfully bucked. They've
put a couple of millions into this show, you know. Say 'when,' it can't
hurt you, special Abadan brand."

[Illustration: Ship loading with oil.]

I said "when." I kept on saying "when," and then as a measure of
self-protection suggested sketching the works while I could distinguish
tanks from palm trees. So we went out and had a preliminary look round,
reserving the "Grand Tour of the Inferno," as my host named our
projected expedition, until after dinner.

I will not attempt to explain the processes of oil refining. I am merely
concerned in narrating what it looks like. I know little beyond the fact
that the crude oil arrives by pipe from the oilfields by means of
several pumping stations and that it is cooked or distilled over
furnaces and converted into different grade oils from petrol to heavy
fuel oil. As a spectacle, however, I found a journey through this weird
region most fascinating and mysterious. At night it appears as a vast
plain gleaming with lights and studded with dark objects, half seen and
suggesting primitive machinery of uncouth proportions. Huge lengths of
pipes creep from the shadows on one hand into the far-off regions of
blackness on the other.

Armed with an electric torch, which the Chief carried, and a large
sketch-book which I regretted taking almost as soon as we started, we
set out on our quest of Dantesque scenery. At first our road ran along
the quays by the river side. A camouflaged Admiralty oiler was loading
fuel oil by means of three pipes that looked like the tentacles of an
octopus clutching on to the side of the ship. Near this quay was a gate,
and we entered the wire fence that surrounds the works and the area of
the tanks and struck out over a dark waste.

The novice who roams about this place in the dark spends a lot of time
falling over pipes. They are stretching all over the place without any
method that is apparent. The Chief showed up most of them with his
torch, and so I fell about only just enough to get used to the feel of
the ground as a preliminary to what was coming later. It had rained
heavily two or three days before, consequently there were lake
districts, slimy reaches of mixed oil and mud and dried, hard-looking
islands that were in reality traps to the unwary. The top only was firm,
and it had the playful property of sliding rapidly on the greasy
substratum and thus sitting you down without warning when you thought
you had reached dry land.

[Illustration: "A mysterious-looking furnace tower."]

Had I known more about Abadan before I started I would have taken a
course of lessons in tight-rope walking, for that seems to be a great
asset in getting along. The Chief was quite a Blondin. He could walk or
run any length of pipe and never swerve. Much practice had made him an
adept. There were places where the only alternative to walking in mud
and water was this balancing feat along the pipe lines.

When I had fallen several times and covered myself with a mixture that
looked like grey condensed milk mixed with butter and felt like a
poultice, I got my second wind. I was still recognizable as a human
being. All fear of making myself in a worse mess had vanished, and thus,
freed from nervousness, I began to get quite daring. The Chief saw in me
the making of a first-class pipe walker, and prophesied that I should be
able to attain the speed of three miles an hour. I still fell off,
however, enough not to get a swelled head on the subject.

After what to me seemed miles, and which as a matter of fact must have
been about five hundred yards, we emerged from the lake region and
were able to find a track along the ground. It skirted a railway line
and led toward some buildings and machinery. A dull glow began to
illuminate the scene and show up our path.

[Illustration: "Crude steam engines evolved by Titans when the world was
young."]

A building loomed up against the sky. It was dimly lit by firelight and
suggested to me a glimpse of the Tower of London with the corner turrets
knocked off. In front of this were some vast boilers with uncouth
chimneys stretching out of sight into the dark sky. The whole thing,
weird and eerie, was reflected in pools of water, through which black
figures toiled and splashed, pushing some loaded trollies. Then we came
out into a lighted area at the foot of a mysterious-looking furnace
tower, where strangely clad men, not unlike tattered and disreputable
monks, were hauling at a great black object, some boiler or piece of
machinery.

The workmen on closer view showed that they were dressed in sacking or
some such rough material in a sort of tunic. They wore long curly hair
and curious hats that looked like Assyrian helmets.

"What race are these men?" I asked the Chief.

"They are the Medes and Persians," he replied.

"And what is that tower?"

"Oh, that--," he paused for a few seconds, "that's Nebuchadnezzar's
Fiery Furnace heated seven times hotter."

He was evidently determined to do me well from the point of view of
local colour and picturesque Biblical association. I think, however,
he missed a chance when later on we saw mysterious writing in Arabic
characters upon the wall of an engine house. He should at least have
read it out as MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

[Illustration: H.M.S. _MANTIS_, ONE OF THE MONITORS ON THE TIGRIS]

Abadan is on an island and the pipe line crosses the water from the
mainland. We could see it stretching away across the flat land into the
darkness where the sky-line of the palm belt by the waterside was just
visible. It is strange to reflect that all this scene of careless
activity is dependent on those two pipes, each about 14 inches in
diameter, connecting it with a point 150 miles away.

I came again in the morning to look at the works. They did not appear
half so mysterious as when seen in the dark. The Tower of London had
shrunk into quite a small buttressed building of brick and
Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace dwindled considerably in size. The Medes
and Persians, on the other hand, looked wilder and more "operatic" than
at night. I think as a matter of fact they were Kurds.

It is a very simple style of get-up to imitate. For purposes of private
theatricals I will tell you how to do it, in case you should find the
stage direction, "_Alarums and excursions. Enter the Medes and
Persians._"

Take a very tattered, colourless, and ill-fitting dressing gown, without
a girdle and flopping about untidily. Wear long black curly hair to
shoulder. Put plenty of grease on. Then knock handle off a
round-bottomed saucepan, very sooty, and place on your head. Dirty your
face and you might walk about Abadan without attracting notice.

I daresay if I knew something technical about the refining of oil I
should not find these works so fascinating. There is always a glamour
about a thing only half understood. Probably the retorts and boilers and
all the apparatus here are of the very latest pattern, yet so strangely
unlike modern machinery do they seem that I find myself wondering if I
have gone back into some previous age and unearthed strange things of
prehistoric antiquity. These solemn-looking turbaned Indians might be
tending the first uncouth monsters of engineering--the antediluvians of
machinery. These serried ranks of tall iron funnels, these rude furnaces
fed by crawling snakes of piping, these roaring domes of fire might be
crude steam engines evolved by Titans when the world was young.

[Illustration]




II

THE VENICE OF THE EAST.

[Illustration: In Ashar creek.]

[Illustration]




THE VENICE OF THE EAST


Before the war, when Mesopotamia was a more distant land than it is
to-day, Basra was often referred to as the Venice of the East. Few
travellers were in a position to test the accuracy of the comparison,
and so it aroused little comment. No Venetians had returned from Basra
burning with indignation and filled with a desire to get even with the
writer who first thought of the parallel, probably because no Venetian
had ever been there.

A few simple souls, who had delighted in the mediaeval splendours of
Venice, dreamed of a Venice still more romantic--a Venice with all her
glories of art tinged with the glamour and witchery of the Arabian
Nights, a Venice whose blue waterways reflected stately palms and golden
minarets. Other souls, like myself, less simple and sufficiently salted
to know that these Turnerian dreams are generally the magical accidents
of changing light and seldom the result of any intrinsic interest in the
places themselves--even they had a grievance when they saw the real
Basra. Was this the Venice of the East, this squalid place beside
soup-coloured waters? Was this the city that reveals the past splendours
of Haroun Alraschid as Venice reveals the golden age of Titian and the
Doges?

The first general impression of Basra is that of an unending series of
quays along a river not unlike the Thames at Tilbury. The British India
boats and other transports lying in the stream or berthed at the wharves
might be at Gravesend and the grey-painted County Council "penny
steamboats" at their moorings in the river look very much as they looked
in the reach below Charing Cross Bridge.

Another thing which makes the contrast between Venice and Basra rather a
painful one is the complete and noticeable absence of anything of the
slightest architectural interest in this Eastern (alleged) counterpart
of the Bride of the Adriatic. Whereas in Venice the antiquarian can
revel in examples of many centuries of diverse domestic architecture
from ducal palace to humble fisherman's dwelling on an obscure "back
street" canal, in Basra there abounds a great deal of rickety rubbish
that never had any interest in itself and which depends for its
effect on the flattering gilding of the sun and the intangible glamour
of Eastern twilight. In fact Basra might be described from an
architectural point of view as a great heap of insanitary and ill-built
rubbish which can look collectively extraordinarily picturesque.
I have seen bits on Ashar Creek (as for instance the wooden
old-tin-and-straw-mat-covered buildings shown in the centre of the
sketch in the heading to this chapter) look most romantic and beautiful.
Yet they will not bear any close inspection, without revealing
themselves as monuments of slovenliness and dirt.

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