'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎26v] (52/72)

3 6
as shown in the annexed tracing* Still the line of the Euphrates valley, through Der
and Aleppo, forms one of the main caravan routes connecting Asiatic Turkey with Con
stantinople. It is thus as well known as the great northern road was long ago in England.
Several travellers have described it fully; notably Lady Anne Blunt, in her <f Bedouin
Tribes of the Euphrates " (1879). It is unnecessary, therefore, to trace in detail one's
course over it. The towns and halting places are shown on the accompanying map.
From Der to Rumadi was fifteen marches, mostly from sunrise to sunset. Fortunately it
rained but seldom. The cold was bracing and satisfactory without being extreme, except
when the wind called "ghailan"t was abroad. With small revenue posts, or at the least
police stations, all along the road, ordinary supplies, such as eggs and chickens, firewood,
chopped straw, and barley are procurable at least in small quantities. By means of irri
gation, rice, melons, and garden produce are raised all over the valley lying between the
river bed proper and the'rocky banks or ridges demarcating the desert beyond. And yet
there could scarcely be a poorer, or more resourceless country. The only place passed
which can be called a town was Anah, in the Baghdad Pashalik, one hundred and sixty
miles north-west of Baghdad. The approach to this from the north opens up a highly
picturesque piece of scenery: the river studded with islands, and the long absent date-
palm, which here touches its northern limit, mingling softly with the landscape. Anah
itself is a straggling, open, and defenceless place, consisting, like " the long town of
Kirkcaldy," of but one apparently interminable street. Its rambling houses, standing in
fertile gardens, are divided among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, whose handlooms turn
out stuffs in much request for cloaks and blankets. Not far from Anah was passed one of
those inscription-covered places common in Arabia which European travellers fonder of
speculation than enquiry sometimes take for precious records of antiquity written in un
discovered characters. This was the 'Gantarah Khazgahor as the Bedouin call it,
" H ajar at Kh'azgah. " The bridge, or " Gantarah" had disappeared ; but on the banks
of the Wddi it had spanned its two masonry supports still stand up; and on these almost
every tribe in the Arabian desert had, at one time or another, engraved or rather scratched
with knife or spear-point the brand used by it, much as Australian horse-breeders do, to
mark the mares and camels belonging to it. But for these awsdm as they are called,-
made with the firing iron, a strayed animal could never be reclaimed. The marks them
selves are wholly arbitrary, some round, others square or angular, and others after
some known instrument or object. Taken together they may well be mistaken for the
letters of some alphabet even stranger than Chinese ; and, indeed, it is not unlikely that
it was in such sets of hieoroglyphics the cuneiform system of writing first originated. On
the whole, mules are the best carriage in the Euphrates valley. In some places a very
little rain will make the ground too like a quicksand to be safe for camels. In others the
gypsum, sandstone, and conglomerate rocks here forming the river banks stand out hard
and precipitous, the very thing for mules. , Fresh carriage can seldom be hired, unless
perhaps in the desert town of Kubeysa, lying ten or fifteen miles inland from the river,
whose inhabitants, much despised for their loquacity and mendacity—two traits thought
by the Arabs to go together—carry on a brisk trade, pedlar fashion, with the Ih-ni-zah
Bedouin-Dhabitiahs in twos or threes are frequent figures on the road ; escorting travellers,
or serving as occasional postmen. These all ride their own horses. Many of them are
robbers, either retired fj-om business, or merely trying a little change of scene and method
in the Government service. Their nags, which they will usually sell from £\o to ^25,
are well suited for travellers ; being " to the manner born," that is, inured to road work
under heavy weights, man and baggage ; with as many fast days as feast days. Under
sized and misshapen they may be, and not strictly sound, the effect of overweighting, and
too early work : but most of them at least are well bred and wiry ; and not unfrequently
their defects seem to serve them better than other horses' perfections.! The honest
* Between 1844 and 1886, the British Consulate, Baghdad, assisted at first by a Government of India subsidy,
kept up a regular dromedary post over the above line, paying the contractor about ^8 per trip between Baghdad
and Damascus. So many sought the privilege of having their correspondence sent in this way, that the establish
ment became not only self-supporting, but highly profitable financially. But in 1881 the Osmanlis started an oppo
sition line, taking letters over precisely the same route merely at International postal rates. This killed our courier
system ; and after working at a loss on the accumulations of byegone years till only the other day, the latter is
now extinct. This accomplished, the Ottoman dromedary post also is being withdrawn. Letters reach Baghdad
from London via Bombay in about five weeks, or via Constantinople and Mosul in about twenty-four days.
f In this wind the Arabs say whole ghasus have perished. When it sets in, even the European is fain to
bandage the sides of his head, Arab fashion. Bedouins, when they ride in it, sometimes close with rude stitches
certain of their mares' parts, to prevent its getting access to their vital organs.
X If travellers between Mediterranean seaports and Persia would not be in such a hurry buying fat town-horses
brought to them by dalldls, or brokers, but wait and pick up those they see already on the road, they would be
batter carried. It is not always though that a dhdbitiah who will sell his horse will sell the saddle with ii.