had ever been there.

A few simple souls, who had delighted in the mediæval splendours of
Venice, dreamed of a Venice still more romantic--a Venice with all her
glories of art tinged with the glamour and witchery of the Arabian
Nights, a Venice whose blue waterways reflected stately palms and golden
minarets. Other souls, like myself, less simple and sufficiently salted
to know that these Turnerian dreams are generally the magical accidents
of changing light and seldom the result of any intrinsic interest in the
places themselves--even they had a grievance when they saw the real
Basra. Was this the Venice of the East, this squalid place beside
soup-coloured waters? Was this the city that reveals the past splendours
of Haroun Alraschid as Venice reveals the golden age of Titian and the
Doges?

The first general impression of Basra is that of an unending series of
quays along a river not unlike the Thames at Tilbury. The British India
boats and other transports lying in the stream or berthed at the wharves
might be at Gravesend and the grey-painted County Council "penny
steamboats" at their moorings in the river look very much as they looked
in the reach below Charing Cross Bridge.

Another thing which makes the contrast between Venice and Basra rather a
painful one is the complete and noticeable absence of anything of the
slightest architectural interest in this Eastern (alleged) counterpart
of the Bride of the Adriatic. Whereas in Venice the antiquarian can
revel in examples of many centuries of diverse domestic architecture
from ducal palace to humble fisherman's dwelling on an obscure "back
street" canal, in Basra there abounds a great deal of rickety rubbish
that never had any interest in itself and which depends for its