Baghdad is often referred to as the great example of the shattered
illusion. We most of us have read the _Arabian Nights_ at an early age,
and think of the abode of the caliphs as a dream city, steeped in what we
have been brought up to think of as the luxury, romance, and glamour of
the East. Now glamour is a delicate substance. In the all-searching glare
of the Mesopotamian sun it is apt to appear merely tawdry. Still, a goodly
number of years spent in wandering about in foreign lands had prepared me
for a depreciation of the "stuff that dreams are made of," and I was not
disappointed. It is unfortunate that the normal way to approach is from
the south, and that that view of the city is flat and uninteresting.
Coming, as I several times had occasion to, from the north, one first
catches sight of great groves of date-palms, with the tall minarets of the
Mosque of Kazimain towering above them; then a forest of minarets and blue
domes, with here and there some graceful palm rising above the flat roofs
of Baghdad. In the evening when the setting sun strikes the towers and the
tiled roofs, and the harsh lights are softened, one is again in the land
of Haroun-el-Raschid.

The great covered bazaars are at all times capable of "eating the hours,"
as the natives say. One could sit indefinitely in a coffee-house and watch
the throngs go by--the stalwart Kurdish porter with his impossible loads,
the veiled women, the unveiled Christian or lower-class Arab women, the
native police, the British Tommy, the kilted Scot, the desert Arab, all
these and many more types wandered past. Then there was the gold and
silver market, where the Jewish and Armenian artificers squatted beside
their charcoal fires and haggled endlessly with their customers. These
latter were almost entirely women, and they came both to buy and sell,
bringing old bracelets and anklets, and probably spending the proceeds on
something newer that had taken their fancy. The workmanship was almost
invariably poor and rough. Most of the women had their babies with them,