DOWN THE TIGRIS. 75 



because there are none. I spent three days in the 

 discomfort of a khan which has doubtless been accum- 

 ulating dirt for some centuries, one of the " two 

 scurvy inns" in alJ probability described by Tavernier 

 in the seventeenth century as the only hostelries of 

 the place, and then, having had a raft of skins con- 

 structed, embarked on a journey down the Tigris. 



Floating down the Tigris on a raft is a restful and 

 leisurely mode of progress, more especially when the 

 wind happens to blow up-stream, in which case the 

 word progress altogether ceases to be applicable to 

 the situation, and makes a pleasant change from hard 

 marching through a desert country. I had huts of 

 felt stretched over a wooden frame erected on the 

 raft for myself and Joseph, and before leaving took 

 the precaution of securing the services of a soldier to 

 act as escort and walking passport. With really 

 supreme sagacity the authorities at Mossul, knowing 

 that I was about to proceed through a country in- 

 habited entirely by Arabs, selected for this duty a 

 man who could only talk Kurdish ! As an ornament, 

 his value was a negligible quantity ; as an article of 

 practical utility, absolutely nil. On one occasion, while 

 waiting close to a village on the river-bank, I suggested 

 that he should clear off the Arabs who were crowding 

 round and becoming a nuisance by reason of their too 

 great inquisitiveness, to which he replied with every 

 symptom of regret that he had no orders from his 

 Government to shoot down the riparian population ! 

 After this I ceased wasting time and energy in trying 

 to knock sense through his abnormally thick skull, 

 and made the best of a bad job by treating him as 

 a huge joke. 



On the evening of the first day we glided over the 

 great dam which stretches across the river twenty 



