A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden by Donald Maxwell
page 22 of 90 (24%)
page 22 of 90 (24%)
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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. |
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