No. 214 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - Aug. 1, 1835

ADVENTURES IN MESOPOTAMIA.--No.

IT seems wonderful to me when I think how much misery man is able to bear. I have sometimes been so very miserable that I have felt quite sure that if ever so little more sorrow came upon me it would break my hear in pieces. But more did come,--and I bore it; and more still came upon that,--and I bore it also. And I knew it was the same with others; and when they did die, it was not misery that killed them, but it was famine, or plague, or drowning that did it. It was thus with us now.

While we were watching with the utmost anxiety the gradual ascent of the water towards us, we were alarmed one morning by the information that the wife of Agha Yacub had died of the plague during the night. She had, it seems, been ill several days in her tent; but as men do not talk about their wives, we knew nothing of it till she was actually dead. This would not much have been minded if we had been upon the road; but shut up together as we were, and having leisure to brood over our dangers, this event was regarded with more dismay that I ever knew my country-men feel about the plague. I, perhaps, felt more strongly on this subject than any one else, as I had learnt from the English to be more afraid than others were of being near those who are afflicted with that terrible disease. I am bound to say that our sympathy with the Agha for the loss he had sustained was much less strong than the anxiety with which we watched to see whom next the plague would smite; for we had very little hope that one victim would satisfy it. We had not long to wait. The husband of the woman was the next in whom the plague appeared, and, before he died, my own uncle, who was this man's particular friend, was also attacked.

Oh, how hard it is to tell what a struggle I felt then between my fears for myself and my duty to my uncle. I felt certain that I should take the plague and die if I went near him; and I did not at all wish to go so soon out of a world in which I believed that there were a great number of good things which I had not yet tasted, and many beautiful things which I had not yet seen. While I thought of these things, I sat outside the little tent in which my uncle lay asleep; and before long my thoughts were interrupted by hearing him all "Lazar! Lazar!"

When I entered the tent I stood still for a moment at a distance, hesitating whether to go to his side or not. He perceived my hesitation, and looked at me at first rather sharply; but, immediately after, his look changed to tenderness, and he said that he really believed the English were perfectly right in what they told me about the plague, and that I had, therefore, better stay at a distance while he talked to me. He then proceeded to acquaint me with the state of his affairs, and told me what I should do in the event of his death. He thus concluded:--"I have thought it best to talk to you about these things now, Lazar, because I know the plague too well to believe that the freshness and cheerfulness which I now feel is a token of any thing else than certain death. Very soon I shall become sleepy, and shall doze out the remainder of life in troubled sleep. I shall seem to suffer; but it is clear that no one can do me any good. I therefore charge you, Lazar, not to let any one come near me; and, of course, I need not tell you not to do so yourself. I did not expect that it would be my lot to die like a dog in the desert; but God sees fit that it should be so, and I do not murmur. Lazar, you have been a very dutiful nephew to me, and I hope that you will live long and prosper abundantly in the world."

Then my heart smote me because I had been thinking for myself more than for him; and I said to him:--"My father, forgive me for having thought that it was better to live among strangers without you, than to die in the desert with you. Shall I forsake you--I neglect you--I who owe all things to you?" Then I ran and threw myself upon his bed, and put my arms round his neck, and wept very much. My uncle raised himself up, and stretched out his arms as if to embrace me; but he changed his mind, and, thrusting me from him, commanded me, in a voice which I had been accustomed to obey, to withdraw to a distance. I did so. But when, on following nights and days, I saw his uneasy motions, and heard his heavy groans, I failed not to approach him, and did all I could think of to relieve or refresh him. I fanned his face and bathed it with water, or I arranged his bed-clothes, so as to render his dying bed more comfortable to him. Of this he could then take no notice, and I knew that he would never more become aware of my proceedings: but my own heart was satisfied.

When my uncle was dead, his old friends came and buried him, it being believed that there is no danger from the corpse of one who dies of the plague. I then made a heap of the things which my uncle had worn, and those on which he had lain, and those which had covered him, and burned them, as the English had instructed me. After that I made up a bed for myself, on which I might lie down and die when the plague should come upon me; for I felt certain that it would do so, after I had been so much with my uncle. But the plague-spot appeared on others, not on me: others died around me, and I continued to live. It seems strange to me now to think how different my feeling had at this time become from all that they ever had been and all that they are now. From the time that my uncle died, I ceased to have any sympathy or sorrow for those that I saw dying daily around me, and I also ceased to have any fear or care for myself. I had but one thought or one wish, which was to get away from this horrible place. No matter whither I went, so that I could get away: Bagdad itself, from which we had fled, would have seemed a paradise to me in comparison with the place in which I now was.

Our detention had already exceeded the fortnight which the Sheikh had considered as the utmost probable period of our stay; and yet the waters still went on increasing day by day. The number of deaths, however, which had happened among us, prevented our stock of dates from being consumed so soon as we expected; yet still it was so much reduced that it became necessary to shorten our daily allowance. I really think there was not a moment in which I did not feel exceedingly hungry; and the utmost that we could do was to keep ourselves a very slight degree short of ravening and savage hunger. Oh, how earnestly we did long for even the frailest boat that was ever trusted upon the waters, that we might endeavour to escape in it to the dwellings of men. It so happened that this wish was not entertained in vain.

One morning we perceived, at the distance of rather more than half a mile from us, one of those small wicker boats which ply upon the Tigris and Euphrates*. As it did not seem that there was any person in it, we conjectured that it had escaped from its moorings somewhere on the Tigris. How we should secure it and avail ourselves of its assistance it did not take long to decide. Two poor Arabs, who were in the employ of the Sheikh, volunteered to go and secure the boat. Their offer was gladly accepted; and they immediately betook themselves to the water, which, at a very short distance from the mounds, was found to be so deep that the men were obliged to swim the rest of the way. When they had got rather more than half-way between the mounds and the boat, one of the men seemed to get faint-hearted, and to despair of accomplishing his undertaking. He therefore turned to swim back to us; but, as he returned, his vigour seemed rapidly to abate, and when he was within about a hundred yards of the mound, he sank, and we saw him no more.

* These boats are of a circular form, and have the appearance of large basins. They are made of wicker-work, so coated over with bitumen as to be impervious to the water. Boats of this description are exceedingly ancient.

The other man reached the boat in safety, and, after resting himself a little, paddled it towards us. When he came within speaking distance, he stopped. He told us that he could not with safety take more than three persons into the boat; and, as he thought himself entitled to some recompense for having risked his life in the undertaking, the three persons he would take were those who would make him the largest payment. This astounded all but the wealthiest among us; for, although a little reflection would have taught us the absurdity of the expectation, yet when we saw the boat coming towards us, every one exulted in the conviction that deliverance from our wretched thraldom was come at last. When the man in the boat spoke to us, however, our eyes were opened; and we could not but admit the truth of what he said, although every one who was not included among the happy three, disapproved of the principle by which the Arab's selection had been guided. Two wealthy merchants of Bagdad and one of Bussorah made much higher offers than the rest could afford, and were therefore accepted. Before they left us, however, they promised that on their arrival at Hit they would send a sufficient number of boats to take us all away; or if they failed in procuring the requisite number of boats, they would not fail to send an ample supply of provisions. Having soothed us by these promises, they entered the boat and rowed off. After this we had a new object of solicitude in watching for the promised boats. Long and anxious were our watchings. But the boats never came; and when we afterwards met at Bagdad the friends who had left us, they convinced us that it was impossible for them to fulfil their promise either as it regarded the boats or the provisions. The boatmen had generally died of the plague, and their boats had gone adrift; and in consequence of the plague and inundation provisions were not to be had at any price, the people living in the towns being themselves obliged to subsist upon their hoarded stores.

It was in the fourth week of our detention that we observed, one morning, that the water had not ascended above the tuft of camel-thorn which had been chosen the preceding evening as the mark by which we might know how far the water would increase during the night. Our rapture at this discovery was, however, checked for the time, by the fear that we were in some way or other deluding ourselves. The thing itself seemed too good to be true, after all that we had suffered; and it was possible that the tuft of camel-thorn which we saw was not the same which we had fixed on for a mark, but another higher up which had the evening before escaped our notice. We therefore set another mark with more precision, and some of us sat watching it all the day. In the evening we were unable to say that the water had either increased or decreased; but to know that there had been no decided increase during fourteen hours was joy sufficient for one time. The next morning many of us were at the water's edge before we could see distinctly. We saw at once that the water had not increased, and when there was more light, we saw that the water was below our mark; the Sheikh was able to put his hand, although it was rather a thick one, between the mark and the water's edge, without wetting the palm. Our delight was for a time quite boundless. Some thanked God upon their knees, some embraced each other, and some ran about the mounds as if they were made, dancing, skipping, and shouting as they went. Our raptures were in time, however, sobered by the reflection that at the slow rate of decrease which we had witnessed, it must still be a long time before we should be able to escape.

The water, however, retired much more rapidly than it had increased; and, at the end of the fifth week, it had so far subsided, that, although the ground was far from being perfectly drained, we thought it prudent to resume our journey. Our party had been reduced more than one-half, and the survivors had become, through anxiety and want, the most feeble, emaciated, and deathly-looking wretches that were ever seen. It took us twice the usual time to travel the distance to Hit, where we waited until the face of the country had become dry, and then, instead of proceeding to Damascus, we return to Bagdad. The city was desolate, and most of my uncle's friends were dead, and their houses overthrown. But by this time men had begun to recover from the state of stupor and indifference into which their multiplied calamities had thrown them. Regrets for the dead, and sympathy with the living, returned; and although so many of my uncle's friends were dead, there were not wanting those who, for his sake, extended to me their protection and assistance.

[Erratum.--The word "American," in the 15th line of the previous Article, is a misprint for "Armenian."]