the first time he had ever been that far down-stream, and he showed a fine
contempt for everything he saw, comparing it in most disparaging terms to
his own desolate native town of Samarra. The cheapness, variety, and
plenty of the food in the bazaars of Busra were the only things that he
allowed in any way to impress him.

I was fortunate enough to run into some old friends, and through one of
them met General Sutton, who most kindly and opportunely rescued me from
the dreary "Rest-Camp" and took me to his house. While I was waiting for a
chance to get a place on a transport, he one morning asked me to go with
him to Zobeir, where he was to dedicate a hospital. Zobeir is a desert
town of ten thousand or so inhabitants, situated fifteen miles inland
from Busra. The climate is supposed to be more healthful, and many of the
rich and important residents of the river town have houses there to which
they retire during the summer months. To an outsider any comparison would
seem only a refinement of degrees of suffocation. The heat of all the
coastal towns of the Persian Gulf is terrific.

Zobeir is a desert town, with its ideals and feelings true to the
inheritance of the tribesmen. It is a market for the caravans of central
Arabia. A good idea of the Turkish feeling toward it may be gathered from
the fact that the inhabitants were exempt from military service. This was
a clear admission on the part of the Turk that he could not cope with the
situation, and thought it wisest not to attempt something which he had no
hope of putting through. It was, therefore, a great triumph for the
British and a sure wedge into the confidence of the desert folk when the
hospital was opened, for any people that can introduce so marked an
innovation among the hidebound desert communities must have won their
confidence and respect in a remarkable degree. Ibrahim, the hereditary
Sheikh of Zobeir, himself contributed largely to the fund for the