of prospects.
Memory and imagination, those two artists of never-failing skill, leave
out of the picture all dust and squalor--and insects! Yet to those who
are sojourning by the Waters of Babylon or resting in sight of the
golden towers of Khadamain romance and mystery would seem to dwell in a
glimpse of Waterloo Bridge, with ghostly barges gliding silently by a
thousand lamps, or in the grey cliffs of houses that make looming vistas
down a London street.

[Illustration: "High, eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable
gold;"--_Paradise Lost, IV._]

Of all places in the world, Baghdad, the city of Haroun-al-Raschid, is
the one around which cling the romantic ideas of the enchanted East.
For this reason "Chu Chin Chow" will probably be still running in ten
years' time. It is a play which has become almost a symbol of Eastern
romance. In Mesopotamia I observed that it was a standard of comparison.
"Like 'Chu Chin Chow'" or "quite the Oscar Asche touch" were expressions
frequently heard among our men who were describing something picturesque
they had seen.

Now I may as well confess before I go any further, that I have not seen
"Chu Chin Chow." I have never been able to get in. During the war, leave
in London was an opportunist affair, with no notice in advance to allow
for advance booking, and so I never succeeded in my quest of the glamour
of the East--on the stage. But war, which brought with it so many
disadvantages brought also many opportunities. Although I was unable to
get into His Majesty's Theatre, I succeeded in getting into Baghdad.

I found streets through which beggars and British officers, camels and
Ford cars jostled each other, often in vain attempts to get on. You can
imagine the state of things on a busy morning. By day there is so much
more rubbish and dirt to take the romance away from the picturesque, but
at night, especially by moonlight, the quaint streets of old Baghdad do
give an element of mystery and adventure that the Arabian Nights and the
stage lead us to expect.

[Illustration: PUFFING BILLY ON THE TIGRIS]

I came upon a wonderful group of buildings by the banks of the Tigris.
It appears to have been a disused mosque. The minarets are shorn of
their tops, and look like huge candlesticks. A dark passage, vaulted
like the aisle of a cathedral, led down to covered bazaars.

Again, at Basra, the House of Sinbad in Ashar Creek has quite the effect
of a wonderfully staged production.