me as being worthy of interest. By this time the natives have got up, in
a most superficial way, the things which they think will interest the
Englishman. Every group of palm trees more than twenty in number is
pointed out as the Garden of Eden, every bump of ground more than six
feet high is the mount on which the Ark rested, and every building more
than fifty years old is the one undoubted and authentic residence of
Sinbad the Sailor. An old house in Mesopotamia in which Sinbad the
Sailor had _not_ lived would be equivalent to one of England's ancient
country mansions in which Queen Elizabeth had never slept. The fact that
Sinbad the Sailor is a literary creation doesn't discourage the Arabs in
the least.

During this voyage of mine by bellam through the multitudinous creeks of
Basra a remarkable thing happened. Under the circumstances it was a
providential happening. _I ran into Brown_.

[Illustration: ".... THE SOLEMN PALMS WERE RANGED ABOVE, UNWOO'D OF
SUMMER WIND"--_Recollections of the Arabian Nights_]

Now I do not expect the readers of some previous notes of my sketching
escapades[1] to believe this. It is almost too wonderful that a
chronicler of travels in desperate need of some comic relief to save his
book from dulness would be so lucky as to pick up such excellent copy as
Brown, without previous intrigue. Nevertheless I do solemnly state that
I had not the slightest idea where Brown was doing his bit in the war. I
had last heard of him in France in the Naval Division. That we should
both have travelled half across the world to meet with a crash in a
backwater at Basra was one of the strangest freaks of fortune I have
come across.