War in the Garden of Eden | Page 7

is often referred to as the great example of the shattered
illusion. We most of us have read the Arabian Nights at an early age,
and think of the abode of the caliphs as a dream city, steeped in what
we have been brought up to think of as the luxury, romance, and
glamour of the East. Now glamour is a delicate substance. In the
all-searching glare of the Mesopotamian sun it is apt to appear merely
tawdry. Still, a goodly number of years spent in wandering about in
foreign lands had prepared me for a depreciation of the "stuff that

dreams are made of," and I was not disappointed. It is unfortunate that
the normal way to approach is from the south, and that that view of the
city is flat and uninteresting. Coming, as I several times had occasion to,
from the north, one first catches sight of great groves of date-palms,
with the tall minarets of the Mosque of Kazimain towering above them;
then a forest of minarets and blue domes, with here and there some
graceful palm rising above the flat roofs of Baghdad. In the evening
when the setting sun strikes the towers and the tiled roofs, and the harsh
lights are softened, one is again in the land of Haroun-el-Raschid.
The great covered bazaars are at all times capable of "eating the hours,"
as the natives say. One could sit indefinitely in a coffee-house and
watch the throngs go by--the stalwart Kurdish porter with his
impossible loads, the veiled women, the unveiled Christian or
lower-class Arab women, the native police, the British Tommy, the
kilted Scot, the desert Arab, all these and many more types wandered
past. Then there was the gold and silver market, where the Jewish and
Armenian artificers squatted beside their charcoal fires and haggled
endlessly with their customers. These latter were almost entirely
women, and they came both to buy and sell, bringing old bracelets and
anklets, and probably spending the proceeds on something newer that
had taken their fancy. The workmanship was almost invariably poor
and rough. Most of the women had their babies with them, little mites
decked out in cheap finery and with their eyelids thickly painted. The
red dye from their caps streaked their faces, the flies settled on them at
will, and they had never been washed. When one thought of the way
one's own children were cared for, it seemed impossible that a
sufficient number of these little ones could survive to carry on the race.
The infant mortality must be great, though the children one sees look
fat and thriving.
Baghdad is not an old city. Although there was probably a village on
the site time out of mind, it does not come into any prominence until
the eighth century of our era. As the residence of the Abasside caliphs
it rapidly assumed an important position. The culmination of its
magnificence was reached in the end of the eighth century, under the
rule of the world-famous Haroun-el-Raschid. It long continued to be a

centre of commerce and industry, though suffering fearfully from the
various sieges and conquests which it underwent. In 1258 the Mongols,
under a grandson of the great Genghis Khan, captured the city and held
it for a hundred years, until ousted by the Tartars under Tamberlane. It
was plundered in turn by one Mongol horde after another until the
Turks, under Murad the Fourth, eventually secured it. Naturally, after
being the scene of so much looting and such massacres, there is little
left of the original city of the caliphs. Then, too, in Mesopotamia there
is practically no stone, and everything was built of brick, which readily
lapses back to its original state. For this reason the invaders easily
razed a conquered town, and Mesopotamia, so often called the "cradle
of the world," retains but little trace of the races and civilizations that
have succeeded each other in ruling the land. When the Tigris was low
at the end of the summer season, we used to dig out from its bank great
bricks eighteen inches square, on which was still distinctly traced the
seal of Nebuchadnezzar. These, possibly the remnants of a quay, were
all that remained of the times before the advent of the caliphs.

II
THE TIGRIS FRONT
A few days after reaching Baghdad I left for Samarra, which was at that
time the Tigris front. I was attached to the Royal Engineers, and my
immediate commander was Major Morin, D.S.O., an able officer with
an enviable record in France and Mesopotamia. The advance army of
the Tigris was the Third Indian Army Corps, under the command of
General Cobbe, a possessor of the coveted, and invariably merited,
Victoria Cross. The Engineers were efficiently commanded by General
Swiney. The