starting from the head of the island they could reach the shore opposite
the down-stream end. The bobbing heads of the dignified old graybeards of
the community looked most ludicrous. On landing they would solemnly don
their clothes, deflate the skins, and go their way.

The mayor proved both intelligent and agreeable. The food situation was
such that it was obviously impossible for him to offer us any serious
help. We held a conclave in the guest-house, sitting cross-legged among
the cushions. In the centre a servant roasted coffee-beans on the large
shovel-spoon that they use for that purpose. The representative village
worthies impressed me greatly. The desert Arabs are always held to be
vastly superior to their kinsmen of the town, and it is undoubtedly true
as a general rule; nevertheless, the elders of Haditha were an unusually
fine group of men. We got a few eggs, which were a most desirable luxury
after a steady diet of black unsweetened tea and canned beef. We happened
to have a sufficient supply of tea to permit us to make an appreciated
gift to the village.

My shoes had collapsed a few days before and I borrowed a pair from a Turk
who had no further use for them. These were several sizes too large and
fashioned in an oblong shape of mathematical exactness. Even in the motor
machine-gun service, there is little that exceeds one's shoes in
importance, and I was looking forward with almost equal eagerness to a
square meal and a pair of my own shoes. The supply of reading-matter had
fallen very low. I had only Disraeli's _Tancred_, about which I found
myself unable to share Lady Burton's feelings, and a French account of a
voyage from Baghdad to Aleppo in 1808. The author, Louis Jacques Rousseau,
a cousin of the great Jean Jacques, belonged to a family of noted
Orientalists. Born in Persia, and married to the daughter of the Dutch
consul-general to that country, he was admirably equipped for the