Chapter XII: An Encounter with an Englishman

Between Hassan Kaif and Jezireh, a distance of thirty-five miles, the scenery is very fine. The river winds through narrow gorges with steep walls of limestone rock riddled with rock tombs. Here and there in the black gorges the high turreted rocks would be skirted below with bands of vegetation; little spurts of glistening water shooting over the rocky tops, as they dashed down to join the river, shot between masses of ferns or trickled through beds of green moss. It was months since we had seen anything green, and we feasted our eyes and senses on the unaccustomed luxuriance. All the grim bareness and desolation of the stone and mud country through which we had passed seemed to serve a purpose now in heightening the intoxication of this scene. Reluctantly I had been compelled to admit, on more than one occasion, that Nature could be positively revolting in places where absence of life and colour were not relieved by any sense of stern ruggedness or the freedom of space; where day after day we had journeyed through a country of little meaningless hillocks strewn with grey stones, only getting round the corner of one to be confronted with another of the same appearance; where it seemed as if Nature had chosen a spot, far from the eye of man, to dump all the clinkers of life, all the stony refuse which even she could not turn to any profitable account--she, the great mother, of whom men say she knows no waste. We had discovered her ugly secret hidden away in this far corner; and now she was using her chief weapon, contrast, to make us feel the true extent of her power. She had wearied and revolted us, and now she seemed to make use of this very fact to give us an intenser appreciation of her best.

"Pretty view, isn't it?" said a voice in the native tongue at my side. Startled from another world, I turned round. Arten was rubbing some spoons with a dirty cloth and waved his hands towards the banks.

"Got anything like this in London?" he asked affably.

I looked at him in silence. He dived into the hut with a scared look, and complained later on to X that the other Pasha had an uncertain temper.

The spell of enchantment was broken; but sentiment was in the air with the smell of wet earth and the sound of drinking vegetation; oleander bushes with bright red blossoms stood out against the dark rock, water-birds darted in and out and vultures hovered overhead. I had a sudden desire, awakened by Arten's interruption, to share the emotions called up by the surrounding scene. I glanced at X. She looked fairly sentimental, I thought, lying motionless in her favourite place at the extreme end of the raft, with a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.

"X," I murmured softly, "what does this make you think about?"

X was one of those rare people who always know what they are thinking about. She did not fail me on this occasion.

"It reminds me of Scotland," she said without hesitation. "Why, what does it make you think about?"

But I had stopped thinking about it, and agreed that I had seen places like it in Scotland.

"Pasha," said Hassan, "the boatmen want you not to sit so near the edge of the raft."

"Why," laughed X, "do they think I shall roll over?"

"No," replied Hassan, pointing ahead, "but we are going to shoot a rapid and they say you will be frightened."

"I would sooner be frightened than go through the awful exertion of moving on this raft," said X, and she gazed placidly at the line of foaming waters which we were rapidly nearing. There was only just room for the raft to rush between hard, sharp-edged boulders of rock, and it seemed as if we should inevitably be dashed to pieces or stranded at an acute angle on one of them.

The Zaptiehs helped with the oars, they and the boatmen keeping up one prolonged yell of "Allah! Allah!" They exerted themselves strenuously, a strange thing for Easterns to do; the raft creaked and rocked and plunged; there was a very disturbing sense of fuss and unseemly exertion on board; the cook was saying his prayers inside; Hassan, with an air of total unconcern or even apparent perception of what was going on, was laboriously adding up his accounts; and X, with equal unconcern, was mending her gloves. On such occasions one thinks of one's past sins and the future; I thought of the future. I stood up and leaned my back against the wall of the hut to steady myself.

"X," I roared above the din, "I wonder what there is for supper to-night."

X looked at me with a bored expression. "The same, I should think," she said, "as we had last night and the night before and the night before that. Why this sudden interest in your food?"

"Because," I said, "I have an idea I shall enjoy my supper to-night."

"Yes," said X (she was always sympathetic), "this sort of weather does make one hungry."

Further conversation was prevented by a sudden leap of water and raft right into the air, and with the leap went up a loud cry to Allah, as the men threw themselves, with one great determination, on the oars. We shot head downwards into the dark waters past the white froth of foam; there was a moment of turmoil, then everything became very still; the men rested exhausted on their oars, the roaring waters sounded faint in the distance. I looked round: Hassan was still at his accounts; X had finished her gloves, and was lying back with her eyes closed; the cook's prayers had ceased; we were through. The cook came out rubbing his hands jocosely.

"Arten," I said, "your prayers have saved us from some inconvenience."

Arten looked conscious. "What danger has there been?" he said; "was the Pasha afraid of the waters?"

"No, indeed," I returned; "it was not the Pasha who was afraid of the waters, but she was afraid she might not get her supper to-night."

"The Pasha is hungry," said X; "we must have onions as well as potatoes to-night."

We arrived at Jezireh, without further adventure, at noon the next day. The River Jezeer runs into the Tigris at this point, so that the town can only be reached by wading through the water.

We were making preparations to go on shore when we observed a little man being carried across the water on the back of a half-naked Arab. He had that incongruous look made up of the European overcoat with a fur collar, the black trousers, and the brown boots, all surmounted with a fez, which we had learnt to associate, curiously enough, both with the office of local Governor and with that of the native Christian Man.

In this case our visitor was the Kaimakam. He was spilt off the Arab's shoulders on to the raft, and landed in rather an unofficial position. We went through the usual pantomime of salaams, and after inquiries after the health and rank of our relations he invited us to come on shore and visit the town.

Jezireh is a stronghold of the Hamidieh Kurds; the ragged soldiers about the streets bore their distinguishing mark, a silver star on the forehead. Their chief Mustafa had been murdered but a year ago, after devastating and burning the whole country round; and under the rule of his weaker son there was a temporary lull in hostilities. But Mustafa's name was still only mentioned in whispered words of awe, and this not by plundered natives alone, but by Turkish regulars and Turkish officials alike.

On returning to the raft we heard that an English Pasha had just ridden into the town and that he was coming to visit us. He had met Hassan, who had been buying supplies in the bazaars, and the following conversation had ensued, which Hassan now repeated for our benefit.

ENGLISH PASHA. Who are you?

HASSAN. I am a cavasse.

ENGLISH PASHA. Who is your Pasha?

HASSAN. Victoria Pasha.

ENGLISH PASHA. Where is he?

HASSAN. She is sitting on the raft.

ENGLISH PASHA. What is she doing there?

HASSAN. She is floating to Baghdad.

ENGLISH PASHA. Where did she come from?

HASSAN. She came out of England.

ENGLISH PASHA. Is she alone?

HASSAN. No, she has a friend, who is not her sister, neither is she her servant.

ENGLISH PASHA. Give the ladies my salaams and say that I will call upon them.

X and I looked at one another. The meeting of an Englishman under such circumstances is no doubt, in one sense, an excitement; so would it be to meet a tiger in an English country lane. In a jungle, now, one expects a tiger, and, being prepared for his attack, does not resent it. In the same way one is prepared to meet an Englishman on common ground in England, but, in an Asiatic wild, one is not prepared for the onslaught and one is therefore taken at a disadvantage. It was ten days since we had seen ourselves, as the Man would see us, in a glass (and then it was only a missionary's glass), and we had lost nearly all our hairpins in the crevices of the raft.

"Is my face as red as yours?" said X.

The question was evidently the outcome of the thoughts which assailed her mind during the few moments' silence in which we had gazed at each other, wondering whether we really looked like that too.

"Your face is all right," I said, "it's only red in patches; but your hair is disgraceful. How's mine?"

"It's all right," said X, critically, "it's only coming down in patches. But there is no time to do anything; here it is; we must brazen it out."

A young Englishman was boarding the raft; he was very spick and span, shaved, brushed, a clean collar, and polished boots.

"You must excuse me for calling upon you in this dishevelled manner," he said as we shook hands, "but travellers have to come as they are; I daresay you can sympathise," and he glanced round at our _menage_.

X laughed. "Oh, as far as that goes," she said, "we are all in the same boat."

"Raft," I corrected in a nervous flutter.

The Young Man looked at me and smiled. I realised that he thought I was trying to make a cheap joke, such as one might have been capable of in the country lane.

"I must introduce myself," he went on. "I am Captain T---- of V----. I am on my way there now. It's strange you should just have arrived to-day as I was crossing the river...."

I murmured something about tea and fled into the men's hut, where Arten was boiling the kettle.

"Arten," I stammered out in broken Turkish, "the English Pasha will have tea with us. You must bring the cups clean. The English never have dirty cups."

Arten smiled back very genially; he breathed into a cup and wiped it vigorously with one of his dirty cloths, by which I concluded that he understood what I had said to him. I had learnt up all the words about dirt and the desirability of washing.

It was raining slightly and we had to ask the Young Man under cover. X and I sat down on one of the camp-beds and the Young Man sat on the opposite bed, sticking his long legs out through the door.

"You speak Turkish, then?" he said to me as I returned.

So he had heard my injunctions! I hastily denied any claim to a knowledge of the language. Arten came in with the tea, which he placed on the floor between the Young Man's top-boots.

"The Pasha," he said, addressing X, "said you wanted something for tea which the English always have, only I did not understand what it was."

"Oh," said X, turning to me, "what was it?"

I kicked X.

"Biscuits," I said.

"No," said Arten, persistently, "it wasn't biscuits; it was something which you don't usually have."

I gave Arten the look which he had learnt to associate with the advisability of his own retreat. The Young Man smiled again and looked the other way.

"Yes," he said, "I don't know where we should be very often without biscuits in this country; they are so easy to carry."

I knew then that he had heard.

The Young Man stayed about half an hour and then rose to go. His camp had gone on, and it was a two hours' ride to the place where they would spend the night.

When he had departed X and I thought it over.

"You bet," I said fretfully, "he will have a five-course dinner to-night, on a table with clean plates and knives for each course, and probably a camp-chair to sit on."

"Yes," said X, "and a looking-glass hung on the wall of his tent, and hot water and a clean towel."

And that's what a man calls roughing it!