After taking the army commander back to rail-head, we retraced our steps
with all speed to Hit, and thence the eight miles up-stream to Salahiyeh.
The road beyond Hit was in fearful shape, and the engineers were working
night and day to keep it open and in some way passable. In the proposed
attack we were to jump off from Salahiyeh, and it was here that the
armored cars were assembled. Our camp was close to a Turkish hospital.
There were two great crescents and stars laid out for a signal to warn our
aeroplanes not to drop bombs. One of the crescents was made of turf and
the other of limestone. The batteries took turns in making the
reconnaissances, in the course of which they would come in for a good deal
of shelling. The road was unpleasant, because the camels and transport
animals that had been killed during the Turkish retreat from Hit were by
now very high. For some unknown reason there were no jackals or vultures
to form a sanitary section. After reconnoitring the enemy positions and
noting the progress they were making in constructing their defenses, we
would make a long circuit back to camp.

One unoccupied morning I went over to an island on the river. Its cool,
restful look had attracted me on the day I arrived, and it quite fulfilled
its promise. Indeed, it was the only place I came across in Mesopotamia
that might have been a surviving fragment of the Garden of Eden. It was
nearly a mile long, and scattered about on it were seven or eight
thick-walled and well-fortified houses. The entire island was one great
palm-grove, with pomegranates, apricots, figs, orange-trees, and
grape-vines growing beneath the palms. The grass at the foot of the trees
was dotted with blue and pink flowers. Here and there were fields of
spring wheat. The water-ditches which irrigated the island were filled by
giant water-wheels, thirty to fifty feet in diameter. These "naurs" have
been well described in the Bible, and I doubt if they have since been
modified in a single item. There are sometimes as many as sixteen in a