When the Turks had fled from Kurna and we were chasing them up the river
with an amazing medley of craft, like a nightmare of Henley regatta
suddenly mobilized, the _Shushan_ was in the forefront of the battle.
Led by the sloops _Espiègle_, _Clio_, and _Odin_, the Stunt Armada came
to Ezra's Tomb at twilight. The river was high and the land in between
the great bends was a maze of rushes and lagoons. Hospital hulks like
Noah's arks, little steamers, and loaded mahailas jostled each other in
their endeavours to get up against the strong stream. The hulks and the
barges were dropped at the bend shown in the sketch, facing page 46, and
the _Odin_ anchored. We had captured already some Turkish barges, and
prisoners had to be collected.

The rest pushed on. Across the bend, some two or three miles away, the
Turkish gunboat _Marmaris_ was putting on every ounce of fuel she had,
and a mass of mahailas and tugs were doing their best to escape the
Nemesis that awaited them. Then the sloops opened fire, and a desultory
cannonade was kept up as it grew darker and darker. At last it was too
dark to get any sort of aim, and firing ceased. The _Marmaris_ had been
set alight by her crew, but we captured the whole of the enemy's
flotilla.

[Illustration: EZRA'S TOMB]

Ezra's Tomb is a splendid spot to look at. Mosquitoes at times makes it
far from pleasant to live in. The blue-tiled dome surrounded by
palms, one of which is bending down in a manner strange to such a
straight-growing tree, is an oasis in a vast wilderness of nothing in
particular.

The Euphrates from a scenic point of view might be described as more