Baghdad for long at a time, I generally had occasion to
spend four or five days there every other month. The life in any city is
complex and interesting, but here it was especially so. We were among a
totally foreign people, but the ever-felt intangible barrier of color was
not present. For many of the opportunities to mingle with the natives I
was indebted to Oscar Heizer, the American consul. Mr. Heizer has been
twenty-five years in the Levant, the greater part of which time he has
spent in the neighborhood of Constantinople. The outbreak of the war found
him stationed at one of the principal ports of the Black Sea. There he
witnessed part of the terrible Armenian massacres, when vast herds of the
wretched people were driven inland to perish of starvation by the
roadsides. Quiet and unassuming, but ever ready to act with speed and
decision, he was a universal favorite with native and foreigner alike.

With him I used to ferry across the river for tea with the Asadulla Khan,
the Persian consul. The house consisted of three wings built around a
garden. The fourth side was the river-bank. The court was a jungle of
flowering fruit-trees, alive with birds of different kinds, all singing
garrulously without pause. There we would sit sipping sherbet, and
cracking nuts, among which salted watermelon seeds figured prominently.
Coffee and sweets of many and devious kinds were served, with arrack and
Scotch whiskey for those who had no religious scruples. The Koran's
injunction against strong drink was not very conscientiously observed by
the majority, and even those who did not drink in public, rarely abstained
in private. Only the very conservative--and these were more often to be
found in the smaller towns--rigorously obeyed the prophet's commands. It
was pleasant to smoke in the shade and watch the varied river-craft
slipping by. The public bellams plied to and fro, rowed by the swart
owners, while against them jostled the gufas--built like the coracles of
ancient Britain--a round basket coated with pitch. No Anglo-Saxon can see
them without thinking of the nursery rhyme of the "wise men of Gotham who
went to sea in a tub." These gufas were some of them twenty-five feet in
diameter, and carried surprising loads--sometimes sheep and cattle
alone--sometimes men and women--often both indiscriminately mingled.
Propelling a gufa was an art in itself, for in the hands of the
uninitiated it merely spun around without advancing a foot