t_ to be that he really believes
it is so. In this case he pictured us approaching Hillah and looking
down upon miles and miles of fruitful gardens intersected with little
waterways--a sort of landscape-garden Venice. This view could only be
obtained from a high cliff, and as there was no cliff in lower
Mesopotamia, except in Brown's imagination, it was natural that he would
be disappointed.

A sudden white fog, moreover, took away any chance of a view of any
kind, and we were soon hopelessly lost. Some soldiers we met on the way
told us to keep straight on and then turn to the left by some palm
trees. As we soon encountered some palm trees every few yards we
wondered whether they intended to be humorous. I don't think they did,
however. The optimism of you-can't-possibly-miss-it type is too general.
The man who says "turn down by some trees" knows the place well, and can
see certain trees in his mind's eye. He will turn when he sees the right
trees, but you will probably get lost.

Needless to say, everything went wrong with our scheme of approaching
the irrigation works from a picturesque angle. The dense fog thickened
and shrouded the neighbourhood of the river in impenetrable mystery. We
kept turning down by palm trees as directed, but to no purpose. We
struck the river bank again after much wandering and kept to it, hoping
the mist would clear. A man in a goufa appeared from nowhere and floated
away out of sight into nowhere like a ghostly visitant from another
world. The sun began to show through the fog and blue sky appeared
overhead. Soon the steaming vapours dispersed, showing a view of
buildings among palm trees and a bridge of boats.

[Illustration: Hillah.]

Here again we were held up while countless mahailas passed through, but
we succeeded in getting over at last and eventually found the house of
the Wise Men, the headquarters of the irrigation officers.

Had we been ambassadors on a diplomatic visit to Hillah, we could not
have been more hospitably entertained or given greater facilities for
getting about in a most fascinating region of the world for any one who
felt the glamour of history in this once highly civilized country.

Great buildings like Ctesiphon near Baghdad or traces of the vast
irrigation works of the past are full of interest, but for romance and
mystery there is no piece of the world more fraught with meaning than
this site of the city of Nebuchadnezzar, nearly 200 square miles in