Adventures in Mesopotamia

No. 212 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - July 25, 1835

ADVENTURES IN MESOPOTAMIA

In an account of the plague of Bagdad, which was given in Number 106 of 'Penny Magazine,' it was stated that several parties of persons who endeavoured to escape to distant towns were intercepted by the inundations of the river Tigris; and while they waited on elevated spots of ground until the waters had subsided, their numbers were daily thinned by the plague. For although they had left Bagdafd to avoid that terrible malady, they had not taken to exclude its presence from their partiesas they went. The following narrative embodies an account furnished by one of the'comparatively few persons who survived the multiplied calamities which attended this attempt, and returned in safety to Bagdad. He was a very intelligent lad, a native of Persia, but of an American family, and consequently of the Christian religion. He had been brought to Bagdad by an uncle, who was his nearest surviving relaitive;"and for several months previous to the plague had resided with an English family with which his uncle had become connected, and in a short time made a very considerable progress. in learning the English language.. Although, however, the following account is given in the first person, it is not offered to our readers as his own composition, but as having been prepared from statements made by him at different times and on various occasions. No further preface is necessary ; unless to add that, when the plague had broken out at Bagdad, the lad's uncle determined to join a party that was about to proceed to Damascus, taking his nephew with him.

When the plague drove us from the city of Bagdad, we crossed over towards Hit on the Euphrates, intending to pass the river at that place in our way to Damascus. There was nothing remarkable the first day, or the second day, of our journey--or if there was, it was only in some small things, which the great things that happened afterwards have made me forget. On the third morning we arose three or four hoursbefore the sun, and proceeded on our way. I was not quite awake for the first hour or more, and rode along dozing and nodding upon iriy mule,--which was the mule that carried, in two bags that were under me, my uncle's things and mine. After that I became quite awake and fresh, and then I looked back to the quarter where the sun rises, that I might see if day-light was comming. But I saw that it was still a good while fronm day. As I was, turning away, my looks fell towards the ground, and I was astonished when I observed that the light of the stars fell, brightly upon it, as it falls upon waters. Then I knew that our muleteers did not know the way to Hit, and were guiding us wrong; else, how was it that we were still so near to the river which we had left two days before? As I looked on to trace out the direction of the river, I saw that it made a large sweep at a considerable distance on our right hand ; and when, in continuing to trace its course, I faced round in the direction we were travelling I saw the, stars twinkling, on the water before us, but at a greater distance than to our right hand--so distant indeed, that I should not have observed it if my attention had not thus been drawn towards it. I saw also that the waters before us swept round on the left hand, so that the waters before us met those behind us, both on the right hand and on the left. This I could not understand. - The water behind us ought to be the Tigris, and the water before us the Euphrates; but at the distance which we had travelled from the former and still had to travel to the latter, I could not understand how it was possible that I should see either of those rivers, much less both. at once. I therefore thought for a moment that there must be some great bend in one or both of those rivers, of which, being a stranger in the country, I had never heard.

Nevertheless, I was still so much surprised that I rode up to my uncle, who was dozing on his horse a little way before me, and I said to him :--" Agha, I do not understand the rivers of this country ! Look: the waters are all ,around us. 'How shall we get out ?" My uncle roused himself, and asked what was the matter? I repeated what I had said, and.tthen he looked around him. He smote his hand upon his forehead, and then spoke. to the persons near him, directing their attention to the waters by which we were enclosed. From their conversation, I gathered that this appearance could Only be occasioned by an overflow of the rivers, which are usually filled at this season, when the snow thaws on the distant mountains. The caravan then halted, and the people asked one another -what-. might be expected, and what was to be done. The sheikh of the caravan said that, judging from the rate at which he knew that the waters must have followed us, the ground on which we then stood would be covered with water within three hours of noon. He said that it was very uncommon for the rivers to overflow at this part, and he therefore did not expect that ,the waters would rise very high ; and he thought that, if we could get to some spot of high ground, our only inconvenience would be the delay of waiting there a few days until the waters subsided.

But," said my uncle, " suppose we do not, in this flat country, find such a rising ground as you speak of?"

"Why, then, the faithful must prepare for Paradise; for were the waters no higher than the knees of our camels, it would be impossible for us to get -through them to Hit."

After a little consideration, he recollected that, at the distance of about four miles to the west, there. were, some of those mounds in which the ancient idolaters, who formerly inhabited the country, were accustomed to bury their dead; and he said that., if we could get there, we might, on those mounds, await the result of the inundation in safety. We accordingly proceeded in the direction'towards the sepulchres.

When the day broke, our conductor smote his. hands together. "Since Bagdad was a city," he said, " there has been no inundation like to this. Look yonder! there are the mounds and look around."

We looked, and saw that, by this time, of dry land around us had become exceedingly contracted; and that between us and the mounds, which looked like islands"in a boundless sea, the a mile's breadth of water. The sheikh bade as hasten for our lives and we accordingly rushed on and entered the waters, where we found that we had to buffet With a strong current from-the north-east. The water increased in depth and force as we advanced, and at last our progress became very difficult. One camel, that was rather heavily laden with dates and other provisions, slipped and fell. As we could not wait to raise him with his load, the man who 'rode him cut the straps which fastened the pack-saddle and burden to his back, and then leaped upon a horse behind another person. The camel, perceiving the danger of its situation, contrived to get up, and hastened after us, leaving its invaluable burden in the water.

We all reached the mounds in safety, and in the first joy of our escape forgot the dangers which lay before us. We had no apprehension that the mounds on which we were could be overflowed, and our first inquiry was into the state of our provisions. " Come what will, we shall not want for water," one person said. I looked into his face to see if this was only a bitter jest, but he looked serious and thankful ; and I recollected that, when one is on a journey, water is always the first consideration. As to provisions, we found that there was among us a tolerable supply of dates, but scarcely any thing else. The sheikh advised us to throw all our separate supplies into a common stock, and make to each person a daily allowance, to be regulated by a calculation as to the longest probable duration of our stay. " How long that may be there is no knowing" he said, " but we must consider that if we should wish to kill the camels'and horses we have no fuel with which to dress their flesh." We accordingly threw all our dates into the sheikh's cloak, which he spread upon the ground. They made a fine heap ; but the old man sat down beside them, and counted them out carefully upon another cloak, when he found that, calculatingwe might be detained there a fortnight, there was not more than twenty-five dates a day for each person. It was agreed, however, that we should be content with only twenty, although we all knew that twenty dates a day could not long sustain the life of man.

The cattle that were with us formed no small part of our care. The barley and chopped straw which remained was not sufficient for three days; and if our beasts perished through want, our own escape would be delayed, as we must then wait till the waters should be quite dried away from the face of the land. It was at last determined that the barley and straw should be reserved for the horses, with the exception of one or two mouthsful, which should be given to the mules every morning and that the camels and asses should be left entirely, and the mules partly; to get their own living from the herbs which were scantily dispersed over the mounds. We had least fear for the camels; not only because they are better able than other cattle to go without food, but because there were several tufts of their favourite herb, the camel-thorn, growing on the mounds where we had found a refuge

Although I call this place " the Mounds," yet, properly, there was but one large heap of high ground.The ancient idolaters of the country had in this place raised up several, of those heaps in which they used to bury their dead in' jars of earthenware ; but, in the course of many ages which have passed, the soil and gravel, washed down from the tops and the sides, had raised the low ground which was between and around them, and moulded them into one common mass large enough to afford accommodation for ourselves and our cattle, and high enough to secure us from the flood. at least we thought so. But when day after day passed away, and we saw that the waters slowly but constantly increased, there was only one among us who appeared to feel no serious alarm for the consequences. That one was the sheikh himself. In the first alarm of the inundation, and before we had reached the mound, no person of the party had seemed more apprehensive. But now all his care was about his cattle, and all his complaints were about the delay. Not withstanding the steady ascent of the water, he laughed to scorn the apprehension that our place of refuge would be overflowed. He said that never, in his own memory or his father's' memory, had inundations which could cover such mounds happened in any part of the country; and he asked triumphantly, how it was possible for a thing to happen which had never happened before ? And, particularly, how could it happen in this part of the country where inundations, when they took place at all, were trifling compared with those which were known farther down towards the Gulf. He forgot that he had himself said before that such an inundation as. the present had not been known since Bagdad had been a city.

Our situation was the more unpleasant from our being debarred from. all occupation or amusement, so that each. day seemed three times longer to us than the days to which we had been accustomed. My uncle said, and the others agreed with him, that if there were plenty of tobacco which they could smoke, and coffee which they could sip, it would be possible to wait the end in patience. But unfortunately the supply of these necessaries was as scanty, and required to be as carefully husbanded, as our dates. When we awoke in the mornings the first business any one thought of was to examine' the state of the water; and great was our sorrow of heart when we found, day after day, that the mark was covered wich, on the evening before, we had set above the waters edge. We seemed like ship-wrecked mariners upon a rock in the great ocean; but we were without the hope that any vessel might pass by and relieve us, and we had the fear that the encroaching waters would soon sweep us from our place of refuge.

[ To be concluded in our next. ]