groves. The river front and the main creeks are
crowded with picturesque craft, the two main types being a large high
prowed barge, just what I picture to have taken King Arthur at his
Passing, but here put to the prosaic uses of heavy transport and
called a mahila; and a long darting craft which can be paddled or
punted and combines the speed of a canoe with the grace of a gondola
and is called, though why I can't conceive, a bhellum. Some of the
barges are masted and carry a huge and lovely sail, but the ones in
use for I.E.F.D. are propelled by little tugs attached to their sides
and quite invisible from beyond, so that the speeding barges seem
magically self-moving.

Ashore one wanders along raised dykes through a seemingly endless
forest of pillared date palms, among which pools and creeks add
greatly to the beauty, though an eyesore to the hygienist. The date
crop is just ripe and ripening, and the golden clusters are immense
and must yield a great many hundred dates to the tree. When one
reaches the native city the streets are unmistakably un-Indian, and
strongly reminiscent of the bazaar scene in Kismet. This is especially
true of the main bazaar, which is a winding arcade half a mile long,
roofed and lined with shops, thronged with men. One sees far fewer
women than in India, and those mostly veiled and in black, while the
men wear long robes and cloakes and scarves on their heads bound with
coils of wool worn garland-wise, as one sees in Biblical pictures.
They seem friendly, or rather wholly indifferent to one, and I felt at
times I might be invisible and watching an Arabian Nights' story for
all the notice they took of me. By the way, I want you to send me a
portable edition of the Arabian Nights as my next book, please.

But the most fascinating sight of all is Ashar Creek, the main
thoroughfare, as crowded with boats as Henley at a regatta. The creek
runs between brick embankments, on which stand a series of Arabian
cafes, thronged with conversational slow moving men who sit there
smoking and drinking coffee by the thousand.

It is a wonderful picture from the wooden bridge with the minaret of a
mosque and the tops of the tallest date palms for a background.

So much for Ashar: I've not seen Basra city yet. We're here till
Sunday probably, awaiting our river boats. There were not enough
available to take us all up on Wednesday, so those who are for the
front line went first. They have gone to a spot b