require only a very slight depth of water to float them, and they are
sufficiently tough to stand bumping and scraping over shoals and
shallows.

The men who manoeuvre these strange craft have some sort of tent or
shelter to protect them from the sun, and they row with huge paddles.
This rowing is sufficient to keep some sort of steering way on the raft,
enough to enable it to get from one bank of the river to the other as it
floats down.

Wood is scarce in the Baghdad region, and the material of these rafts is
sold together with the cargo on its arrival at its destination. The crew
proceed back by road to Diarbekr or some up-river town to bring down
another raft.

The glamour of the East is felt mostly in the West. In an atmosphere of
fog and wet streets, sun-baked plains with endless caravans and belts of
date-palms by Tigris' shore seem the most delightful of prospects.
Memory and imagination, those two artists of never-failing skill, leave
out of the picture all dust and squalor--and insects! Yet to those who
are sojourning by the Waters of Babylon or resting in sight of the
golden towers of Khadamain romance and mystery would seem to dwell in a
glimpse of Waterloo Bridge, with ghostly barges gliding silently by a
thousand lamps, or in the grey cliffs of houses that make looming vistas
down a London street.

[Illustration: "High, eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable
gold;"--_Paradise Lost, IV._]

Of all places in the world, Baghdad, the city of Haroun-al-Raschid, is