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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the head of Mohammedanism, to the 

 whole-hearted co-operation with Chris- 

 tian forces in the capture of Jerusalem 

 and Damascus. 



Carchemish in those spring days of 

 1914 was more interesting than we then 

 realized ; for there Britisher and German 

 were working side by side, the one to es- 

 tablish another intellectual link with the 

 past, the other to weld a new material 

 link for a future empire. 



But for the friendly intervention of the 

 Kaiser, whose later disregard for the 

 decencies of life wrecked his monstrous 

 plans of world power, the Bagdad Rail- 

 way would have furrowed its path 

 through the incomparable treasures of 

 Carchemish, and priceless examples of 

 ancient art might have been ground to 

 dust beneath the iron chariot of modern 

 commerce. 



But for the aid that Woolley and Law- 

 rence gave to the German empire-build- 

 ers when the rising Euphrates clutched 

 jealously at the piles of the temporary 

 bridge, their second structure would have 

 been carried away by the flood as was 

 their first. 



Lawrence, who later aided in Ger- 

 many's downfall, then succeeded in in- 

 ducing the Kurds, Arabs, and Syrians, 

 whom the Germans had offended, to re- 

 turn to their tasks and save the bridge, 

 which was a thorn in the side of British 

 pride and an important step in the chal- 

 lenging advance of Germany toward the 

 coveted gates of India. 



The excavators had built an unimpos- 

 ing but comfortable hut, the floor of 

 which was of Roman mosaic that had 

 been brought thither from a group of 

 ruins several miles away. Lawrence and 

 Woolley regarded Roman ruins as quite 

 modern and common. They took much 

 more pride in the unglazed Hittite cups, 

 4,000 years old, from which we sipped 

 our Turkish coffee. 



A KURDISH GLEE CLUB WITH COLLEGE 

 TRIMMINGS 



Our entertainer one evening was a 

 Kurd singer. In order to reach the hut, 

 I had walked for miles through the 

 darkness of a thunderstorm, in the midst 

 of which a flash of lightning showed me 

 that I was standing on the brink of a test 



shaft 20 feet deep, and I was glad when 

 I reached the cosy residence of the 

 amiable excavators. 



My friends welcomed me most heartily, 

 and soon my football sweater, with its 

 big orange K, took its place with the 

 white blazer trimmed with red, worn by 

 Lawrence, and Woolley's of bright green 

 trimmed with white. It was, if one over- 

 looked the Kurdish musicians huddled at 

 the far end of the room, a most "col- 

 legey"-looking group. The air was thick 

 with smoke from Hogarth's pipe and 

 Woolley's cigar, and the wind outside 

 could whistle chilling tunes without de- 

 tracting from the cosiness of the low 

 room with its dark, rich hangings. 



The grizzled Kurd who was to sing 

 sat quietly awaiting his turn, in his deep- 

 set eyes a far-away look, and with his 

 shepherd's pipe across his lap. Beside 

 him was a Kurd who could well pose as 

 a model man of the desert — swarthy of 

 skin and clear of eye, his thin lips com- 

 pressed to a narrow line, his sun scarf 

 draped gracefully around his head and 

 neck. 



MUD WALLS OBLITERATED BY THE POWER 

 OP SONG 



The accompanist had a peculiar musi- 

 cal instrument, whose counterpart can be 

 seen in the Hittite carvings of three 

 thousand years ago. Perhaps the skill 

 of a hundred generations animated his 

 fingers. Certainly it was no modern 

 music that came from the mandolin-like 

 affair with the long neck and the small 

 body. It was a spirit of the ancient days 

 returned to play for the men who had 

 rediscovered the site of the brilliant 

 Hittite capital". 



Hogarth rapped the ashes from his 

 pipe and threw his leg over the arm of 

 the easy chair. Lawrence, the blond 

 Oxonian, curled down into the throne- 

 like seat, in which his white suit stood 

 out from the soft-toned background of 

 a Persian rug. Woolley motioned the 

 musicians to begin. The accompaniment 

 seemed to be the echo of the winds that 

 swept across the Euphrates and moaned 

 as they passed on across the city of ruins. 



But it was something different when 

 the old singer blew a few notes on his 

 pipe. The windy wastes were now in- 



