She will come down toward the leading marks shown on the
right-hand side of the picture, and then slide along the bank,
using the lighter on the port side as a fender. Then she will leave the
bank and shoot across to the other side of the river, taking the next
turn with her starboard lighter.

This drawing will serve to show the general nature of most Mesopotamian
river scenery, dead flat, with nothing or little to relieve the
monotony, a great expanse of muddy waters and featureless dust, with
just a suggestion in one direction of a low line of blue--very faint.
It tells of the far-away Persian mountains and of snow.

The great feature of the Narrows, however, and one which all our
dwellers in Mesopotamia will remember vividly as long as they live, is
the egg-sellers from the Marsh Arab villages on the banks. Although a
steamer proceeding up-river may be kicking up a great fuss in the water
and apparently thumping along at a great rate, it is, in reality, making
only about four knots on the land. Consequently, when it sidles into the
bank, with one of its lighters touching the marsh, the natives who are
selling things can keep up, and a running--literally running--fire of
bargaining is maintained between the ship's company and the Arabs.

They are all women who do the selling--weird figures in black carrying
baskets of eggs and occasionally chicken. Gesticulating, shouting,
shrieking, they rush along beside the up-going steamer and keep even
with it. In the middle of a bargain the steamer may edge away until a
great gulf is fixed between the bargainers. Sometimes it will slide
along the other bank and a fresh company of yelling Amazons will try and
open up negotiations for eggs while the frenzied and now almost demented
sellers left behind rend their clothes and shout imprecations at their