efore two o'clock in the morning, I lay down on a
heap of bales and slept like a top.

Two o'clock came much sooner than I wished. An Arab came and shook me,
and, half asleep, I mounted my mule. To the shouts of the drivers, the
tinkle of the small bells, and the ding-dong of the large camel-bells
the long caravan passed out into the darkness. Soon we had the outermost
courts and palm groves of Baghdad behind us, and before us the silent,
sleeping desert.

No one troubled himself about me; I had paid for the mule and might look
after myself. Sometimes I rode in front, sometimes behind, and
occasionally I almost went to sleep in the saddle. The body of a dead
dromedary lay on the road, and a pack of hungry jackals and hyaenas were
feasting on the carcase. When we came near them they ran away
noiselessly to the desert, only to return when we were past. Farther on
some fat vultures kept watch round the body of a horse, and raised
themselves on their heavy wings as we approached.

[Illustration: PLATE IV. A PERSIAN CARAVANSERAI.]

After a ride of seven hours we reached a caravanserai, where the Arabs
unloaded their animals and said that we were to stay there all day. It
was as warm as in an oven, and there was nothing to do but lie and doze
on the stone floor.

Next night we rode eight hours to the town of Bakuba, which is
surrounded by a wood of fine date-palms. Here we encamped in the court
of a huge caravanserai (Plate IV.). I was sitting talking to one of my
travelling companions when three Turkish soldiers came and demanded to
see my passport. "I have no passport," I replied. "Well, then, pay us
ten _kran_ apiece, and you shall pass the frontier all the same." "No, I
will not pay you a farthing," was the answer they got. "Take that rug
and the bag instead," they cried, and made for my things. This I could
not stand, and gave the man who seized my bag such a blow on the chest
that he dropped his booty, and the same with the man with the rug. The
scoundrels were making to rush at me together, when two of my Arabs came
up to my assistance. To avoid further unpleasantness I went to the
governor, who for six _kran_ gave me a passport.

I had now become so friendly with the Arabs that I obtained the loan of
a horse instead of a mule. We set out again at nine o'clock, and rode
all night in the most brilliant moonshine. I was so sleepy that
sometimes I dozed in the saddle, and once, when the horse shied at a
skeleton on