rivers Tone and Parrett, stands For that outlay he carried me a large earthwork, still known as King Alfred's Fort, which must have been a strong place in its day. It is not at all unlike the position at Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, out of which the Turks were driven in July 1915. The whole of the valley between us and the Parrett is known as Sedgemoor, and the scene of the last battle on English soil is almost in a direct line between us and the town of Bridgwater, whose roofs and chimneys can just be discerned against the evening sky. So on over Puriton Hill and down into the level country to the place whence we started out this morning. Other and more violent forms of bodily exercise provide thrills of their own with which motoring has nothing to compare. But there is no way of winning the gift of sleep more sure or more delightful than to spend such a day as we have spent exploring our own country in God's fresh air. If you doubt me, O my brethren overseas, who are drinking the waters of the extreme Tanais, and wondering what to do with your next leave, buy a car yourselves when you get home and try. Perhaps a few facts and figures may be of use to you. They are taken from the book of Henry, of which I made earlier mention. I owned Henry for 234 days, and his upkeep and repairs for that period cost me almost exactly the same number of pounds. (and other people and things) 6850 miles in England and 450 miles in France. On an average he covered 20 miles to each gallon of petrol consumed. could have improved this very much if I had known sooner about the disc on the dashboard arrangement. The amount of oil consumed was 231 gallons. I reckon that Henry saved me not less than £50 in necessary railway fares, and at least as much again in other incidental expenses of railway travel, luggage, tips, taxi-hire, &c. The price for which I sold Henry fell short of that which I paid for him by £165. But, then, the bottom was knocked out of my market by a general reduction in the price of new cars. On the whole I cry contentaye, and as I look back, far more than content. I feel towards Henry as at the end of a good season I have felt to a horse that has carried me bravely, and so I bid him farewell. I can imagine that in the day when the silver cord is loosed, a man, or that part of him which survives, might hold much the same language to his outworn body. Goodbye, old comrade. You were a bit of a rogue, you know, in some ways. You never really did quite all that you ought to have done, and you let me down pretty badly twice. But I cannot honestly say that this was altogether your fault. Taken all round, you were a faithful slave, and, anyhow, we had some astonishingly good times together." or THE PEOPLE OF THE CAMEL. BY FULANAIN. WITH the exception of the Ma'adan, or Marsh - dwellers, the tribes of Mesopotamia fall into two broad divisions-the People of the Desert, and the People of the Fields. From these divisions come the townsmen, fortunately few in number, for on the whole the town atmosphere seems to stifle all the good and encourage all the bad qualities of the Arab character. The People of the Desert scorn cultivation in any form. They are camel-owners, breeders of fine horses, keepers of vast flocks of sheep and goats, which roam the wide plains in search of grazing. Fierce and proud, they adhere rigidly to strict tribal custom. Intolerant of others, yet renowned for their hospitality, they live the simple patriarchal life. The People of the Fields are poor and hard-working, but as a rule cheerful and contented, easy as to their morals, grateful for any small service done them. Oppressed by their shaikhs, and despised by the People of the Desert, they eke out a precarious livelihood as growers of wheat and barley, or perhaps toil in the moist paddy-fields, or cultivate vegetables in a narrow strip of land running alongside a river or canal. People of the Desert, until, driven forth from their pasture lands at some stage of their history by a great drought or other disaster, they were led, like the Children of Israel, to exchange, in the words of Professor Myres," their nomad, pastoral, patriarchal life, with its simple needs and economies, and almost complete seclusion from the troubles of the world, for a Land of Promise, which, like all the paradises of the Nearer East, only yields its fruit to arduous toil and anxious 'thought for the morrow'; where the man without capital is ruined by a late frost; where hired labour is the sole alternative to slavery; where even the 'good land' can only be won by fighting, and held by intrigue and oppression of the conquered, 'hewers of wood and drawers of water.'" This gradual change from a wandering to a settled life is still going on, and can be seen in many of the tribes of Mesopotamia to-day. It is with such tribes, still pastoral, but nevertheless tied to their crops and therefore only half-nomadic, that these stories, based on actual occurrences during the British Occupation, have to do. Calling themselves, and fiercely proud of being, "the People of the Camel," yet, Yet they too were once because they have tasted of the fruits of cultivation, they become as the tillers of the soil, whom they now so heartily despise. are doomed, in the course of a few short generations, to THE FATHER OF BUNDS. Haji Mohammed bin Ali awaited the decision of the Political Officer. His fine old face was seamed and lined with countless wrinkles, and wrinkles, and his neatly-trimmed beard was white with age; but in the eyes which looked out under his bushy brows was the clear strong gaze of one used to wide spaces, a steadfast brightness undimmed by years. "I am in thy hands," he said simply. "Thou knowest that my honour is at stake; a guest robbed in my madhif His words were cut short by the bursting open of the office door. Pushing aside the two farrashes who would have restrained him, a tall angry figure strode in, his brown aba streaming behind him, and the checked red kafiah on his head pushed to one side. Before he reached the office table, he had burst into a torrent of excited speech. his voice quivering with anger, "before all my tribesmen I was turned away from the bundcalled ignorant and of no account,-bidden depart as one having no knowledge! I, who am called the Father of Bunds, who since I was no taller than my youngest son Zamil-’ A short middle-aged man who had followed the shaikh into the room now touched his elbow, said a few words in his ear, and led him to a bench. It was his mullah, a member of a class of Arab society whose power, in the next generation, is doomed to wane. At present he is indispensable to his master, for only in very rare cases can a shaikh conduct his own correspondence. In the past, when inter-tribal warfare was rather the rule than the exception, a man might be a powerful shaikh one day and a landless fugitive the next. Old Mohammed rose to his He had no spare time for the feet, and stood uncertain education of his sons in any whether to go or stay; for arts save those of war, and the this was his overlord, the great young Arabs of noble birth Shaikh Najim, ruler of all the grew up, from the time they tribes of the Albu Hassain. were able to sit a horse, trained What could have happened to to wield the sword rather than render him oblivious of all the the pen. Should the British formalities of an interview with leave to-morrow, however, the the Hakim, to make him thus Occupation has already ensured forgetful of all his dignity and one thing that the boys who state ! are the shaikhs of the future "Sahib," cried the newcomer, have all, during the five years' security and peace, learned to read and write their own language. Meanwhile, the mullah, in his capacity of secretary and confidant to the shaikh, often possesses considerable power, and is sometimes, with good reason, more feared among the tribesmen than the shaikh himself. Of the two men now before the Political Officer, however, there could be no question as to which was the ruling spirit. In spite of his sixty years, the tall commanding figure of Najim, his deep-set eyes and proud stern features, showed plainly that Mullah Sulman might be a trusted clerk, even a chosen mouthpiece, but could not be more. He knew, nevertheless, that his master was a man of deeds, not words; and now, thinking quite rightly that the Political Officer had some difficulty in following Najim's incoherent exclamations, took up the tale himself. The mullah was, emphatically, a man of words. His periods were long and his language flowery, and the story promised in his hands to be a lengthy one. Shaikh Najim, wrapping his aba more closely round him, sat grim and silent while the tale of his grievance was slowly unfolded. Briefly, it was this. Every year in the spring, when the snows melt on the northern mountains, the river rushes down in flood, swollen to many times its ordinary volume, and heavy with silt. If it were not for the earthen bunds which the Arab builds along the banks to protect his crops, many miles of land on either side of the river-bed would be submerged. Only too often the rushing water finds a weak place in the bund, and breaks a way through; and this had now happened at Al Juzra. At once Najim had collected his tribesmen, brought up the material for repairing the breach, and himself ridden to the spot to direct operations. Then on the scene had appeared a “Muhendis," by which term the Arab designates any one possessing engineering experience; in this case it was an Irrigation official, full of youthful zeal and recently-acquired text-book knowledge. Ignoring Najim, he ordered the tribesmen to leave the broken bund, and set to work on building a new one farther back from the river. Najim expostulated, ordered the men to go on with their work, said (with perfect truth) that in the days of the Muhendis' grandfather he had been responsible for this bund, and that for five-and-forty years he had repaired it whenever necessary. "Much more said his honour the shaikh," continued the mullah, and the Political Officer, knowing Najim of old, smiled to himself. But the harangue was wasted on the Muhendis. Through an interpreter he addressed the angry shaikh somewhat as fol lows: "My dear old fellow, I don't understand a word you say; of mouth has still to serve for novel, drama, and newspaper, the post of story-teller is an honourable one; and the simple, almost Biblical language, the dignified and restrained gestures of the old tribesman, brought the breadth and freshness of wind-swept spaces into the dingy office. "In the year after the death of Ghadhban in the fight against Kharaibat," he began, "my sister's husband desired to lease the lands of Khazainah from Shaikh Najim. Now this is good rich land, and free from salt; but wellnigh every year the river overflows its banks and breaks through the bunds, flooding the greater part. For this reason the land was leased out for only a quarter its value, and Abdulla, the husband of my sister, offered the sum of two hundred liras to the shaikh. But Najim was in need of money; for the last two years the crops had been poor, his revenue was heavily in arrears, and the Turks were pressing for payment. He would not lease the land for less than six hundred liras. "Were I but sure that my crops would be safe from flood,' said Abdulla, 'willingly would I pay this sum, for the land is good land. But thou knowest that not more than one year in seven is the harvest safe.' |