rden
attached to the mess and watered by a variety of people. The first
attempt was a failure owing to the absent-mindedness of the waterers,
each of whom, during an exceedingly hot spell, tacitly assumed that the
other man would do his duty. The second attempt was successful. Peas
straight out of packets and scattered in a long furrow rose from the
earth with a kind of ferocity, as if they hated the soil in which they
found themselves. There was one disadvantage in the produce of this
garden--its flavour was rather weak.

Coming down the river at the end of the year the railway was a great new
feature of the country. Small tank engines were crawling over the plain
and all along the banks were piles of sleepers and gangs of Arabs. We
reached the entrance of the Narrows at dusk and anchored for the night.
It was a night that differed entirely from those we endured when going
up. There was a concert party on board, and a cavalry major who
possessed some tomato soup. That night the sky was superb with stars.
Taurus rose, with Aldebaran as red as fire; then Castor and Pollux calm
in their symmetry, with the Pleiades above like a shattered diamond.
Then glittering Orion slowly swung above the horizon. In the middle of
the night there was a crash of musketry, and a sudden uproar. The major
appeared, speaking Hindustani very rapidly, his eyes closed. It appeared
that some Arabs had crept on to the barge next the shore and tried to
loot some mail bags. Quiet was soon restored. At dawn a crescent moon,
upholding Venus at her fairest, hung in the east, throwing a soft white
flame over the dark water.

That night we reached Kurna and tied up alongside the Garden of Eden. It
was pitch black. A string of little Arab boys suddenly emerged from a
brightly illuminated door each with a sack and slipped on board. This
was the mail for Basra, from the dwellers in Eden. About nine a dim,
white-robed procession passed down the river-side with a lamp, a torch
and a beating drum and vanished into a building. A wedding was being
celebrated in the Garden of Eden. Next morning that bride of yesterday
might have cast her white veil over the scene. Through the clinging
mist the life of the little hamlet gradually became visible. A cafe
revealed itself, a collection of wooden settles in a small square, and
beyond a big dark doorway. A fat Arab in yellow appeared and gazed at
us. Then an old wizened fellow, a _haji_ from his green turban showing
h