wooded than the Tigris. There are some delightful glimpses of waterside
verdure and rush-covered shores. To the archæologist and the historian
Mugheir is intensely interesting, for the great mound discloses the site
of the ancient Ur--Ur of the Chaldees--from which Abraham set out
towards Canaan.

Up till now, upon a map of the world in Abraham's time, the good little
_Shushan_ would still be at sea. She would be approaching the coast at
the mouth of the river Euphrates, the Tigris flowing-out some fifty
miles further east. Dockyards and busy workshops would proclaim the
vicinity of this capital, the greatest of all the cities of Chaldea.

Since these prosperous days the sea has receded about 150 miles, and
left Ur a nondescript heap to be disputed over by professors.

At length, when we had said good-bye to the _Shushan_ and taken to a
motor-boat, we arrived at Hillah, bent on finding the house of the
irrigation officer. We landed on the wrong side of the river and rashly
let the boat go back. Brown maintains now that this was my idea, but as
a matter of fact it was one of his attempts at a picturesque
approach--for my benefit. Brown has a vivid imagination, and sees so
clearly in his mind how a place _ought_ to be that he really believes
it is so. In this case he pictured us approaching Hillah and looking
down upon miles and miles of fruitful gardens intersected with little
waterways--a sort of landscape-garden Venice. This view could only be
obtained from a high cliff, and as there was no cliff in lower
Mesopotamia, except in Brown's imagination, it was natural that he would
be disappointed.

A sudden white fog, moreover, took away any chance of a view of any