bazaars are long covered-in ways, arched like cloisters and very
picturesque at night. There are some wonderful blues on domes and
minarets, but it is not until you see the golden towers of Khadamain
that you get any glimpse of the splendour of the golden prime of good
Haroun-al-Raschid. Khadamain is a great place of pilgrimage, and so
zealously guarded is the place that it is said no Christian would ever
be allowed to come out of the great mosque alive. A golden chain hangs
across the entrance. This can be seen in frontispiece sketch of this
book. All good Mussulmans kiss this chain as they enter the sacred
precincts.

From many delightful points of view the gleaming towers of this place,
seen through the palms and reflected in the flooded lagoons at the
margin of the river, do indeed give us something of the colour and
romance that we had expected to see and yet so rarely find in the
sun-baked lands of Mesopotamia.

[Illustration]




VIII

PARADISE LOST

[Illustration: "Blossoms and fruit at once of golden hue Appeared, with
gay enamelled colours mixed." --_Paradise Lost, IV_.]

[Illustration]