country, but they take readily to drill, and it was amusing to hear them
ordering each other about in their clipped English. They were used for
garrisoning Baghdad.

After we left Amara we continued our winding course up-stream. A boat
several hours ahead may be seen only a few hundred yards distant across
the desert. The banks are so flat and level that it looks as if the other
vessels were steaming along on land. The Arab river-craft was most
picturesque. At sunset a mahela, bearing down with filled sail, might
have been the model for Maxfield Parrish's _Pirate Ship_. The Arab women
ran along the bank beside us, carrying baskets of eggs and chickens, and
occasionally melons. They were possessed of surprising endurance, and
would accompany us indefinitely, heavily laden as they were. Their robes
trailed in the wind as they jumped ditches, screaming out their wares
without a moment's pause. An Indian of the boat's crew was haggling with a
woman about a chicken. He threw her an eight-anna piece. She picked up the
money but would not hand him the chicken, holding out for her original
price. He jumped ashore, intending to take the chicken. She had a few
yards' start and made the most of it. In and out they chased, over hedge
and ditch, down the bank and up again. Several times he almost had her.
She never for a moment ceased screeching--an operation which seemed to
affect her wind not a particle. At the end of fifteen minutes the Indian
gave up amid the delighted jeers of his comrades, and returned shamefaced
and breathless to jump aboard the boat as we bumped against the bank on
rounding a curve.

One evening we halted where, not many months before, the last of the
battles of Sunnaiyat had been fought. There for months the British had
been held back, while their beleaguered comrades in Kut could hear the
roar of the artillery and hope against hope for the relief that never