Читать книгу Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie - Страница 11

Beyrout! Blue sea, a curving bay, a long coastline of hazy blue mountains. Such is the view from the terrace of the Hotel. From my bedroom, which looks inland, I see a garden of scarlet poinsettias. The room is high, distempered white, slightly prison-like in aspect. A modern wash-basin complete with taps and waste-pipe strikes a dashing modern note.^fn1 Above the basin and connected to the taps is a large square tank with removable lid. Inside, it is full of stale-smelling water, connected to the cold tap only!

The arrival of plumbing in the East is full of pitfalls. How often does the cold tap produce hot water, and the hot tap cold! And how well do I remember a bath in a newly equipped ‘Western’ bathroom where an intimidating hot-water system produced scalding water in terrific quantities, no cold water was obtainable, the hot-water tap would not turn off, and the bolt of the door had stuck!

As I contemplate the poinsettias enthusiastically and the washing facilities distastefully, there is a knock at the door. A short, squat Armenian appears, smiling ingratiatingly. He opens his mouth, points a finger down his throat, and utters encouragingly ‘Manger!’

By this simple expedient he makes it clear to the meanest intelligence that luncheon is served in the dining-room.

There I find Max awaiting me, and our new architect, Mac (Robin Macartney), whom as yet I hardly know. In a few days’ time we are to set off on a three months’ camping expedition to examine the country for likely sites. With us, as guide, philosopher, and friend, is to go Hamoudi, for many years foreman at Ur, an old friend of my husband’s, and who is to come with us between seasons in these autumn months.

Mac rises and greets me politely, and we sit down to a very good if slightly greasy meal. I make a few would-be amiable remarks to Mac, who blocks them effectively by replying: ‘Oh, yes?’ ‘Really?’ ‘Indeed?’

I find myself somewhat damped. An uneasy conviction sweeps over me that our young architect is going to prove one of those people who from time to time succeed in rendering me completely imbecile with shyness. I have, thank goodness, long left behind me the days when I was shy of everyone. I have attained, with middle age, a fair amount of poise and savoir faire. Every now and then I congratulate myself that all that silly business is over and done with! ‘I’ve got over it,’ I say to myself happily. And as surely as I think so, some unexpected individual reduces me once more to nervous idiocy.

Useless to tell myself that young Mac is probably extremely shy himself and that it is his own shyness which produces his defensive armour, the fact remains that, before his coldly superior manner, his gently raised eyebrows, his air of polite attention to words that I realize cannot possibly be worth listening to, I wilt visibly, and find myself talking what I fully realize is sheer nonsense. Towards the end of the meal Mac administers a reproof.

‘Surely,’ he says gently in reply to a desperate statement of mine about the French Horn, ‘that is not so?’

He is, of course, perfectly right. It is not so.

After lunch, Max asks me what I think of Mac. I reply guardedly that he doesn’t seem to talk much. That, says Max, is an excellent thing. I have no idea, he says, what it is like to be stuck in the desert with someone who never stops talking! ‘I chose him because he seemed a silent sort of fellow.’

I admit there is something in that. Max goes on to say that he is probably shy, but will soon open up. ‘He’s probably terrified of you,’ he adds kindly.

I consider this heartening thought, but don’t feel convinced by it.

I try, however, to give myself a little mental treatment.

First of all, I say to myself, you are old enough to be Mac’s mother. You are also an authoress—a well-known authoress. Why, one of your characters has even been the clue in a Times crossword. (High-water mark of fame!) And what is more, you are the wife of the Leader of the Expedition! Come now, if anyone is to snub anyone, it is you who will snub the young man, not the young man who will snub you.

Later, we decide to go out to tea, and I go along to Mac’s room to ask him to come with us. I determine to be natural and friendly.

The room is unbelievably neat, and Mac is sitting on a folded plaid rug writing in his diary. He looks up in polite inquiry.

‘Won’t you come out with us and have tea?’

Mac rises.

‘Thank you!’

‘Afterwards, I expect you’d like to explore the town,’ I suggest. ‘It’s fun poking round a new place.’

Mac raises his eyebrows gently and says coldly: ‘Is it?’

Somewhat deflated, I lead the way to the hall where Max is waiting for us. Mac consumes a large tea in happy silence. Max is eating tea in the present, but his mind is roughly about 4000 B.C.

He comes out of his reverie with a sudden start as the last cake is eaten, and suggests that we go and see how our lorry is getting on.

We go forthwith to look at our lorry—a Ford chassis, to which a native body is being built. We have had to fall back on this as no second-hand one was to be obtained in sufficiently good condition.

The bodywork seems definitely optimistic, of the Inshallah nature, and the whole thing has a high and dignified appearance that is suspiciously too good to be true. Max is a little worried at the non-appearance of Hamoudi, who was to have met us in Beyrout by this date.

Mac scorns to look at the town and returns to his bedroom to sit on his rug and write in his diary. Interested speculation on my part as to what he writes in the diary.

An early awakening. At five a.m. our bedroom door opens, and a voice announces in Arabic: ‘Your foremen have come!’

Hamoudi and his two sons surge into the room with the eager charm that distinguishes them, seizing our hands, pressing them against their foreheads. ‘Shlon kefek?’ (How is your comfort?) ‘Kullish zen.’ (Very well.) ‘El hamdu lillah! El hamdu lillah!’ (We all praise God together!)

Shaking off the mists of sleep, we order tea, and Hamoudi and his sons squat down comfortably on the floor and proceed to exchange news with Max. The language barrier excludes me from this conversation. I have used all the Arabic I know. I long wistfully for sleep, and even wish that the Hamoudi family had postponed their greetings to a more seasonable hour. Still, I realize that to them it is the most natural thing in the world thus to arrive.

Tea dispels the mists of sleep, and Hamoudi addresses various remarks to me, which Max translates, as also my replies. All three of them beam with happiness, and I realize anew what very delightful people they are.

Preparations are now in full swing—buying of stores; engaging of a chauffeur and cook; visits to the Service des Antiquités; a delightful lunch with M. Seyrig, the Director, and his very charming wife. Nobody could be kinder to us than they are—and, incidentally, the lunch is delicious.

Disagreeing with the Turkish douanier’s opinion that I have too many shoes, I proceed to buy more shoes! Shoes in Beyrout are a delight to buy. If your size is not available, they are made for you in a couple of days—of good leather, perfectly fitting. It must be admitted that buying shoes is a weakness of mine. I shall not dare to return home through Turkey!

We wander through the native quarters and buy interesting lengths of material—a kind of thick white silk, embroidered in golden thread or in dark blue. We buy silk abas to send home as presents. Max is fascinated with all the different kinds of bread. Anyone with French blood in him loves good bread. Bread to a Frenchman means more than any other kind of food. I have heard an officer of the Services Spéciaux say of a colleague in a lonely frontier outpost: ‘Ce pauvre garçon! Il n’a même pas de pain là bas, seulement la galette Kurde!’ with deep and heartfelt pity.

We also have long and complicated dealings with the Bank. I am struck, as always in the East, with the reluctance of banks to do any business whatever. They are polite, charming, but anxious to evade any actual transaction. ‘Oui, oui!’ they murmur sympathetically. ‘Ecrivez une letter!’ And they settle down again with a sigh of relief at having postponed any action.

When action has been reluctantly forced upon them, they take revenge by a complicated system of ‘les timbres’. Every document, every cheque, every transaction whatever, is held up and complicated by a demand for ‘les timbres’. Continual small sums are disbursed. When everything is, as you think, finished, once more comes a hold-up!

‘Et deux francs cinquante centimes pour les timbres, s’il vous plaît.’

Still, at last transactions are completed, innumerable letters are written, incredible numbers of stamps are affixed. With a sigh of relief the Bank clerk sees a prospect of finally getting rid of us. As we leave the Bank, we hear him say firmly to another importunate client: ‘Ecrivez une lettre, s’il vous plaît.’

There still remains the engaging of a cook and chauffeur.

The chauffeur problem is solved first. Hamoudi arrives, beaming, and informs us that we are in good fortune—he has secured for us an excellent chauffeur.

How, Max asks, has Hamoudi obtained this treasure?

Very simply, it appears. He was standing on the water-front, and having had no job for some time, and being completely destitute, he will come very cheap. Thus, at once, we have effected an economy!

But is there any means of knowing whether he is a good chauffeur? Hamoudi waves such a question aside. A baker is a man who puts bread in an oven and bakes it. A chauffeur is a man who takes a car out and drives it!

Max, without any undue enthusiasm, agrees to engage Abdullah if nothing better offers, and Abdullah is summoned to an interview. He bears a remarkable resemblance to a camel, and Max says with a sigh that at any rate he seems stupid, and that is always satisfactory. I ask why, and Max says because he won’t have the brains to be dishonest.

On our last afternoon in Beyrout, we drive out to the Dog River, the Nahr el Kelb. Here, in a wooded gully running inland, is a café where you can drink coffee, and then wander pleasantly along a shady path.

But the real fascination of the Nahr el Kelb lies in the carved inscriptions on the rock where a pathway leads up to the pass over the Lebanon. For here, in countless wars, armies have marched and left their record. Here are Egyptian hieroglyphics—of Rameses II—and boasts made by Assyrian and Babylonian armies. There is the figure of Tiglathpileser I. Sennacherib left an inscription in 701 B.C. Alexander passed and left his record. Esarhaddon and Nebuchadnezzar have commemorated their victories and finally, linking up with antiquity, Allenby’s army wrote names and initials in 1917. I never tire of looking at that carved surface of rock. Here is history made manifest…

I am so far carried away as to remark enthusiastically to Mac that it is really very thrilling, and doesn’t he think so?

Mac raises his polite eyebrows, and says in a completely uninterested voice that it is, of course, very interesting…

The arrival and loading up of our lorry is the next excitement. The body of the lorry looks definitely top-heavy. It sways and dips, but has withal such an air of dignity—indeed of majesty—that it is promptly christened Queen Mary.

In addition to Queen Mary we hire a ‘taxi’—a Citröen, driven by an amiable Armenian called Aristide. We engage a somewhat melancholy-looking cook (’Isa), whose testimonials are so good as to be highly suspicious. And finally, the great day comes, and we set out—Max, Hamoudi, myself, Mac, Abdullah, Aristide and ’Isa—to be companions, for better, for worse, for the next three months.

Our first discovery is that Abdullah is quite the worst driver imaginable, our second is that the cook is a pretty bad cook, our third is that Aristide is a good driver but has an incredibly bad taxi!

We drive out of Beyrout along the coast road. We pass the Nahr el Kelb, and continue on with the sea on our left. We pass small clusters of white houses and entrancing little sandy bays, and small coves between rocks. I long to stop and bathe, but we have started now on the real business of life. Soon, too soon, we shall turn inland from the sea, and after that, for many months, we shall not see the sea again.

Aristide honks his horn ceaselessly in the Syrian fashion. Behind us Queen Mary is following, dipping and bending like a ship at sea with her top-heavy bodywork.

We pass Byblos, and now the little clusters of white houses are few and far between. On our right is the rocky hillside.

And at last we turn off and strike inland for Homs.

There is a good hotel at Homs—a very fine hotel, Hamoudi has told us.

The grandeur of the hotel proves to be mainly in the building itself. It is spacious, with immense stone corridors. Its plumbing, alas, is not functioning very well! Its vast bedrooms contain little in the way of comfort. We look at ours respectfully, and then Max and I go out to see the town. Mac, we find, is sitting on the side of his bed, folded rug beside him, writing earnestly in his diary.

(What does Mac put in his diary? He displays no enthusiasm to have a look at Homs.)

Perhaps he is right, for there is not very much to see.

We have a badly cooked pseudo-European meal and retire to bed.

Yesterday we were travelling within the confines of civilization. Today, abruptly, we leave civilization behind. Within an hour or two there is no green to be seen anywhere. Everything is brown sandy waste. The tracks seem confusing. Sometimes at rare intervals we meet a lorry that comes up suddenly out of nothingness.

It is very hot. What with the heat and the unevenness of the track and the badness of the taxi’s springs, and the dust that you swallow and which makes your face stiff and hard, I start a furious headache.

There is something frightening, and yet fascinating, about this vast world denuded of vegetation. It is not flat like the desert between Damascus and Baghdad. Instead, you climb up and down. It feels a little as though you had become a grain of sand among the sand-castles you built on the beach as a child.

And then, after seven hours of heat and monotony and a lonely world—Palmyra!

That, I think, is the charm of Palmyra—its slender creamy beauty rising up fantastically in the middle of hot sand. It is lovely and fantastic and unbelievable, with all the theatrical implausibility of a dream. Courts and temples and ruined columns…

I have never been able to decide what I really think of Palmyra. It has always for me the dream-like quality of that first vision. My aching head and eyes made it more than ever seem a feverish delusion! It isn’t—it can’t be—real.

But suddenly we are in the middle of people—a crowd of cheerful French tourists, laughing and talking and snapping cameras. We pull up in front of a handsome building—the Hotel.

Max warns me hurriedly: ‘You mustn’t mind the smell. It takes a little getting used to.’

It certainly does! The Hotel is charming inside, arranged with real taste and charm. But the smell of stale water in the bedroom is very strong.

‘It’s quite a healthy smell,’ Max assures me.

And the charming elderly gentleman, who is, I understand, the Hotel proprietor, says with great emphasis:

‘Mauvaise odeur, oui! Malsain, non!’

So that is settled! And, anyway, I do not care. I take aspirin and drink tea and lie down on the bed. Later, I say, I will do sight-seeing—just now I care for nothing but darkness and rest.

Inwardly I feel a little dismayed. Am I going to be a bad traveller—I, who have always enjoyed motoring?

However, I wake up an hour later, feeling perfectly restored and eager to see what can be seen.

Mac, even, for once submits to being torn from his diary.

We go out sight-seeing, and spend a delightful afternoon.

When we are at the farthest point from the Hotel we run into the party of French people. They are in distress. One of the women, who is wearing (as all are) high-heeled shoes, has torn off the heel of her shoe, and is faced with the impossibility of walking back the distance to the Hotel. They have driven out to this point, it appears, in a taxi, and the taxi has now broken down. We cast an eye over it. There appears to be but one kind of taxi in this country. This vehicle is indistinguishable from ours—the same dilapidated upholstery and general air of being tied up with string. The driver, a tall, lank Syrian, is poking in a dispirited fashion into the bonnet.

He shakes his head. The French party explain all. They have arrived here by ’plane yesterday, and will leave the same way tomorrow. This taxi they have hired for the afternoon at the Hotel, and now it has broken down. What will poor Madame do? ‘Impossible de marcher, n’est ce pas, avec un soulier seulement.’

We pour out condolences, and Max gallantly offers our taxi. He will return to the Hotel and bring it out here. It can make two journeys and take us all back.

The suggestion is received with acclamations and profuse thanks, and Max sets off.

I fraternize with the French ladies, and Mac retires behind an impenetrable wall of reserve. He produces a stark ‘Oui’ or ‘Non’ to any conversational openings, and is soon mercifully left in peace. The French ladies profess a charming interest in our journeyings.

‘Ah, Madame, vous faites le camping?’

I am fascinated by the phrase. Le camping! It classes our adventure definitely as a sport!

How agreeable it will be, says another lady, to do le camping.

Yes, I say, it will be very agreeable.

The time passes; we chat and laugh. Suddenly, to my great surprise, Queen Mary comes lurching along. Max, with an angry face, is at the wheel.

I demand why he hasn’t brought the taxi?

‘Because,’ says Max furiously, ‘the taxi is here.’ And he points a dramatic finger at the obdurate car, into which the lank Syrian is still optimistically peering.

There is a chorus of surprised exclamations, and I realize why the car has looked so familiar! ‘But,’ cries the French lady, ‘this is the car we hired at the Hotel.’ Nevertheless, Max explains, it is our taxi.

Explanations with Aristide have been painful. Neither side has appreciated the other’s point of view.

‘Have I not hired the taxi and you for three months?’ demands Max. ‘And must you let it out to others behind my back in this shameful way?’

‘But,’ says Aristide, all injured innocence, ‘did you not tell me that you yourself would not use it this afternoon? Naturally, then, I have the chance to make a little extra money. I arrange with a friend, and he drives this party round Palmyra. How can it injure you, since you do not want to sit in the car yourself?’

‘It injures me,’ replies Max, ‘since in the first place it was not our arrangement; and in the second place the car is now in need of repair, and in all probability will not be able to proceed tomorrow!’

‘As to that,’ says Aristide, ‘do not disquiet yourself. My friend and I will, if necessary, sit up all night!’

Max replies briefly that they’d better.

Sure enough, the next morning the faithful taxi awaits us in front of the door, with Aristide smiling, and still quite unconvinced of sin, at the wheel.

Today we arrive at Der-ez-Zor, on the Euphrates. It is very hot. The town smells and is not attractive. The Services Spéciaux kindly puts some rooms at our disposal, since there is no European hotel. There is an attractive view over the wide brown flow of the river. The French officer inquires tenderly after my health and hopes I have not found motoring in the heat too much for me. ‘Madame Jacquot, the wife of our General, was complètement knock out when she arrived.’

The term takes my fancy. I hope that I, in my turn, shall not be complètement knock out by the end of our survey!

We buy vegetables and large quantities of eggs, and with Queen Mary full to the point of breaking her springs, we set off, this time to start on the survey proper.

Busaira! Here there is a police post. It is a spot of which Max has had high hopes, since it is at the junction of the Euphrates with the Habur. Roman Circesium is on the opposite bank.

Busaira proves, however, disappointing. There are no signs of any antique settlement other than Roman, which is treated with the proper disgust. ‘Min Ziman er Rum,’ says Hamoudi, shaking his head distastefully, and I echo him dutifully.

For to our point of view the Romans are hopelessly modern—children of yesterday. Our interest begins at the second millennium B.C., with the varying fortunes of the Hittites, and in particular we want to find out more about the military dynasty of Mitanni, foreign adventurers about whom little is known, but who flourished in this part of the world, and whose capital city of Washshukkanni has yet to be identified. A ruling caste of warriors, who imposed their rule on the country, and who intermarried with the Royal House of Egypt, and who were, it seems, good horsemen, since a treatise upon the care and training of horses is ascribed to a certain Kikkouli, a man of Mitanni.

And from that period backwards, of course, into the dim ages of pre-history—an age without written records, when only pots and house plans, and amulets, ornaments, and beads, remain to give their dumb witness to the life the people lived.

Busaira having been disappointing, we go on to Meyadin, farther south, though Max has not much hope of it. After that we will strike northward up the left bank of the Habur river.

It is at Busaira that I get my first sight of the Habur, which has so far been only a name to me—though a name that has been repeatedly on Max’s lips.

‘The Habur—that’s the place. Hundreds of Tells!’

He goes on: ‘And if we don’t find what we want on the Habur, we will on the Jaghjagha!’

‘What,’ I ask, the first time I hear the name, ‘is the Jaghjagha?’

The name seems to me quite fantastic!

Max says kindly that he supposes I have never heard of the Jaghjagha? A good many people haven’t, he concedes.

I admit the charge and add that until he mentioned it, I had not even heard of the Habur. That does surprise him.

‘Didn’t you know,’ says Max, marvelling at my shocking ignorance, ‘that Tell Halaf is on the Habur?’

His voice is lowered in reverence as he speaks of that famous site of prehistoric pottery.

I shake my head and forbear to point out that if I had not happened to marry him I should probably never have heard of Tell Halaf!

I may say that explaining the places where we dig to people is always fraught with a good deal of difficulty.

My first answer is usually one word—‘Syria’.

‘Oh!’ says the average inquirer, already slightly taken aback. A frown forms on his or her forehead. ‘Yes, of course—Syria…’ Biblical memories stir. ‘Let me see, that’s Palestine, isn’t it?’

‘It’s next to Palestine,’ I say encouragingly. ‘You know—farther up the coast.’

This doesn’t really help, because Palestine, being usually connected with Bible history and the lessons on Sunday rather than a geographical situation, has associations that are purely literary and religious.

‘I can’t quite place it.’ The frown deepens. ‘Whereabouts do you dig—I mean near what town?’

‘Not near any town. Near the Turkish and Iraq border.’

A hopeless expression then comes across the friend’s face.

‘But surely you must be near some town!’

‘Alep,’ I say, ‘is about two hundred miles away.’

They sigh and give it up. Then, brightening, they ask what we eat. ‘Just dates, I suppose?’

When I say that we have mutton, chickens, eggs, rice, French beans, aubergines, cucumbers, oranges in season and bananas, they look at me reproachfully. ‘I don’t call that roughing it,’ they say.

At Meyadin le camping begins.

A chair is set up for me, and I sit in it grandly in the midst of a large courtyard, or khan, whilst Max, Mac, Aristide, Hamoudi and Abdullah struggle to set up our tents.

There is no doubt that I have the best of it. It is a richly entertaining spectacle. There is a strong desert wind blowing, which does not help, and everybody is raw to the job. Appeals to the compassion and mercy of God rise from Abdullah, demands to be assisted by the saints from Armenian Aristide, wild yells of encouragement and laughter are offered by Hamoudi, furious imprecations come from Max. Only Mac toils in silence, though even he occasionally mutters a quiet word under his breath.

At last all is ready. The tents look a little drunken, a little out of the true, but they have arisen. We all unite in cursing the cook, who, instead of starting to prepare a meal, has been enjoying the spectacle. However, we have some useful tins, which are opened, tea is made, and now, as the sun sinks and the wind drops and a sudden chill arises, we go to bed. It is my first experience of struggling into a sleeping-bag. It takes the united efforts of Max and myself, but, once inside, I am enchantingly comfortable. I always take abroad with me one really good soft down pillow—to me it makes all the difference between comfort and misery.

I say happily to Max: ‘I think I like sleeping in a tent!’

Then a sudden thought occurs to me.

‘You don’t think, do you, that rats or mice or something will run across me in the night?’

‘Sure to,’ says Max cheerfully and sleepily.

I am digesting this thought when sleep overtakes me, and I wake to find it is five a.m.—sunrise, and time to get up and start a new day.

The mounds in the immediate neighbourhood of Meyadin prove unattractive.

‘Roman!’ murmurs Max disgustedly. It is his last word of contempt. Stifling any lingering feeling I may have that the Romans were an interesting people, I echo his tone, and say ‘Roman’, and cast down a fragment of the despised pottery. ‘Min Ziman… er Rum,’ says Hamoudi.

In the afternoon we go to visit the American dig at Doura. It is a pleasant visit, and they are charming to us. Yet I find my interest in the finds flagging, and an increasing difficulty in listening or in taking part in the conversation.

Their account of their original difficulties in getting workmen is amusing.

Working for wages in this out-of-the-way part of the world is an idea that is entirely new. The expedition found itself faced with blank refusal or non-comprehension. In despair they appealed to the French military authorities. The response was prompt and efficient. The French arrested two hundred, or whatever the number needed was, and delivered them at work. The prisoners were amiable, in the highest good humour, and seemed to enjoy the work. They were told to return on the following day, but did not turn up. Again the French were asked to help, and once again they arrested the workmen. Again the men worked with evident satisfaction. But yet again they failed to turn up, and once again military arrest was resorted to.

Finally the matter was elucidated.

‘Do you not like working for us?’

‘Yes, indeed, why not? We have nothing to do at home.’

‘Then why do you not come every day?’

‘We wish to come, but naturally we have to wait for the ’asker (soldiers) to fetch us. I can tell you, we were very indignant when they did not come to fetch us! It is their duty!’

‘But we want you to work for us without the ’asker fetching you!’

‘That is a very curious idea!’

At the end of a week they were paid, and that finally set the seal on their bewilderment.

Truly, they said, they could not understand the ways of foreigners!

‘The French ’asker are in command here. Naturally, it is their right to fetch us, and put us in prison or send us to dig up the ground for you. But why do you give us money? What is the money for? It does not make sense!’

However, in the end the strange customs of the West were accepted, howbeit with head shakings and mutterings. Once a week money was paid them. But a vague grudge against the ’asker remained. The ’asker’s job was to fetch them every day!

Whether true or not, this makes a good story! I only wish I could feel more intelligent. What is the matter with me? When I get back to camp my head is swimming. I take my temperature, and find that it is a hundred and two! Also, I have a pain in my middle, and feel extremely sick. I am very glad to crawl into my flea-bag, and go to sleep, spurning the thought of dinner.

Max looks worried this morning and asks me how I feel. I groan and say: ‘Like death!’ He looks more worried. He asks me if I think I am really ill.

I reassure him on that point. I have what is called in Egypt a Gippy tummy and in Baghdad a Baghdad tummy. It is not a very amusing complaint to have when you are right out in the desert. Max cannot leave me behind alone, and in any case the inside of the tent in the day-time registers about a hundred and thirty! The survey must go on. I sit huddled up in the car, swaying about in a feverish dream. When we reach a mound, I get out and lie down in what shade the height of Queen Mary affords, whilst Max and Mac tramp over the mound, examining it.

Frankly, the next four days are sheer unmitigated hell! One of Hamoudi’s stories seems particularly apposite—that of a Sultan’s lovely wife, whom he carried off, and who bewailed to Allah night and day that she had no companions and was alone in the desert. ‘And at last Allah, weary of her moanings, sent her companions. He sent her the flies!’

I feel particularly venomous towards the lovely lady for incurring the wrath of Allah! All day long flies settling in clouds make it impossible to rest.

I regret bitterly that I have ever come on this expedition, but just manage not to say so.

After four days, with nothing but weak tea without milk, I suddenly revive. Life is good again. I eat a colossal meal of rice and stew of vegetables swimming in grease. It seems the most delicious thing I have ever tasted!

After it, we climb up the mound at which we have pitched our camp—Tell Suwar, on the left bank of the Habur. Here there is nothing—no village, no habitation of any kind, not even any Beduin tents.

There is a moon above, and below us the Habur winds in a great S-shaped curve. The night air smells sweet after the heat of the day.

I say: ‘What a lovely mound! Can’t we dig here?’

Max shakes his head sadly and pronounces the word of doom.

‘Roman.’

‘What a pity. It’s such a lovely spot.’

‘I told you,’ said Max, ‘that the Habur was the place! Tells all along it on either side.’

I have taken no interest in Tells for several days, but I am glad to find I have not missed much.

‘Are you sure there isn’t any of the stuff you want here?’ I ask wistfully. I have taken a fancy to Tell Suwar.

‘Yes, of course there is, but it’s underneath. We’d have to dig right down through the Roman stuff. We can do better than that.’

I sigh and murmur: ‘It’s so still here and so peaceful—not a soul in sight.’

At that moment a very old man appears from nowhere at all.

Where has he come from? He walks up the side of the mound slowly, without haste. He has a long white beard and ineffable dignity.

He salutes Max politely. ‘How is your comfort?’ ‘Well. And yours?’ ‘Well.’ ‘Praise God!’ ‘Praise God!’

He sits down beside us. There is a long silence—that courteous silence of good manners that is so restful after Western haste.

Finally the old man inquires Max’s name. Max tells it him. He considers it.

‘Milwan,’ he repeats. ‘Milwan… How light! How bright! How beautiful!’

He sits with us a little longer. Then, as quietly as he has come, he leaves us. We never see him again.

Restored to health, I now really begin to enjoy myself. We start every morning at early dawn, examining each mound as we come to it, walking round and round it, picking up any sherds of pottery. Then we compare results on the top, and Max keeps such specimens as are useful, putting them in a little linen bag and labelling them.

There is a great competition between us as to who gets the prize find of the day.

I begin to understand why archaeologists have a habit of walking with eyes downcast to the ground. Soon, I feel, I myself shall forget to look around me, or out to the horizon. I shall walk looking down at my feet as though there only any interest lies.

I am struck as often before by the fundamental difference of race. Nothing could differ more widely than the attitude of our two chauffeurs to money. Abdullah lets hardly a day pass without clamouring for an advance of salary. If he had had his way he would have had the entire amount in advance, and it would, I rather imagine, have been dissipated before a week was out. With Arab prodigality Abdullah would have splashed it about in the coffee-house. He would have cut a figure! He would have ‘made a reputation for himself’.

Aristide, the Armenian, has displayed the greatest reluctance to have a penny of his salary paid him. ‘You will keep it for me, Khwaja, until the journey is finished. If I want money for some little expense I will come to you.’ So far he has demanded only fourpence of his salary—to purchase a pair of socks!

His chin is now adorned by a sprouting beard, which makes him look quite a Biblical figure. It is cheaper, he explains, not to shave. One saves the money one might have to spend on a razor blade. And it does not matter here in the desert.

At the end of the trip Abdullah will be penniless once more, and will doubtless be again adorning the water-front of Beyrout, waiting with Arab fatalism for the goodness of God to provide him with another job. Aristide will have the money he has earned untouched.

‘And what will you do with it?’ Max asks him.

‘It will go towards buying a better taxi,’ replies Aristide.

‘And when you have a better taxi?’

‘Then I shall earn more and have two taxis.’

I can quite easily foresee returning to Syria in twenty years’ time, and finding Aristide the immensely rich owner of a large garage, and probably living in a big house in Beyrout. And even then, I dare say, he will avoid shaving in the desert because it saves the price of a razor blade.

And yet, Aristide has not been brought up by his own people. One day, as we pass some Beduin, he is hailed by them, and cries back to them, waving and shouting affectionately.

‘That,’ he explains, ‘is the Anaizah tribe, of whom I am one.’

‘How is that?’ Max asks.

And then Aristide, in his gentle, happy voice, with his quiet, cheerful smile, tells the story. The story of a little boy of seven, who with his family and other Armenian families was thrown by the Turks alive into a deep pit. Tar was poured on them and set alight. His father and mother and two brothers and sisters were all burnt alive. But he, who was below them all, was still alive when the Turks left, and he was found later by some of the Anaizah Arabs. They took the little boy with them and adopted him into the Anaizah tribe. He was brought up as an Arab, wandering with them over their pastures. But when he was eighteen he went into Mosul, and there demanded that papers be given him to show his nationality. He was an Armenian, not an Arab! Yet the blood brotherhood still holds, and to members of the Anaizah he still is one of them.

Hamoudi and Max are very gay together. They laugh and sing and cap stories. Sometimes I ask for a translation when the mirth is particularly hilarious. There are moments when I feel envious of the fun they are having. Mac is still separated from me by an impassable barrier. We sit together at the back of the car in silence. Any remark I make is considered gravely on its merits by Mac and disposed of accordingly. Never have I felt less of a social success! Mac, on the other hand, seems quite happy. There is about him a beautiful self-sufficiency which I cannot but admire.

Nevertheless, when, encased in my sleeping-bag at night in the privacy of our tent, I hold forth to Max on the incidents of the day, I strenuously maintain that Mac is not quite human!

When Mac does advance an original comment it is usually of a damping nature. Adverse criticism seems to afford him a definite gloomy satisfaction.

Am perplexed today by the growing uncertainty of my walking powers. In some curious way my feet don’t seem to match. I am puzzled by a decided list to port. Is it, I wonder fearfully, the first symptom of some tropical disease?

I ask Max if he has noticed that I can’t walk straight.

‘But you never drink,’ he replies. ‘Heaven knows,’ he adds reproachfully, ‘I’ve tried hard enough with you.’

This introduces a second and controversial subject. Every-one struggles through life with some unfortunate disability. Mine is to be unable to appreciate either alcohol or tobacco.

If I could only bring myself to disapprove of these essential products my self-respect would be saved. But, on the contrary, I look with envy at self-possessed women flipping cigarette ash here, there and everywhere, and creep miserably round the room at cocktail parties finding a place to hide my untasted glass.

Perseverance has not availed. For six months I religiously smoked a cigarette after lunch and after dinner, choking a little, biting fragments of tobacco, and blinking as the ascending smoke pricked my eyelids. Soon, I told myself, I should learn to like smoking. I did not learn to like it, and my performance was criticized severely as being inartistic and painful to watch. I accepted defeat.

When I married Max we enjoyed the pleasures of the table in perfect harmony, eating wisely but much too well. He was distressed to find that my appreciation of good drink—or, indeed, of any drink—was nil. He set to work to educate me, trying me perseveringly with clarets, burgundies, sauternes, graves, and, more desperately, with tokay, vodka, and absinthe! In the end he acknowledged defeat. My only reaction was that some tasted worse than others! With a weary sigh, Max contemplated a life in which he should be for ever condemned to the battle of obtaining water for me in a restaurant! It has added, he says, years to his life.

Hence his remarks when I enlist his sympathy for my drunken progress.

‘I seem,’ I explain, ‘to be always falling over to the left.’

Max says it is probably one of these very rare tropical diseases that are distinguished by just being called by somebody’s name. Stephenson’s disease—or Hartley’s. The sort of thing, he goes on cheerfully, which will probably end with your toes falling off one by one.

I contemplate this pleasing prospect. Then it occurs to me to look at my shoes. The mystery is at once explained. The outer sole of my left foot and the inner sole of the right foot are worn right down. As I stare at them the full solution dawns on me. Since leaving Der-ez-Zor I have walked round about fifty mounds, at different levels, on the side of a steep slope, but always with the hill on my left. All that is needed is to go into reverse, and go round mounds to the right instead of the left. In due course my shoes will then be worn even.

Today we arrive at Tell Ajaja, the former Arban, a large and important Tell.

The main track from Der-ez-Zor joins in near here, so we feel now we are practically on a main road. Actually we pass three cars, all going hell-for-leather in the direction of Der-ez-Zor!

Small clusters of mud houses adorn the Tell, and various people pass the time of day with us upon the big mound. This is practically civilization. Tomorrow we shall arrive at Hasetshe, the junction of the Habur and the Jaghjagha. There we shall be in civilization. It is a French military post, and an important town in this part of the world. There I shall have my first sight of the legendary and long-promised Jaghjagha river! I feel quite excited.

Our arrival at Hasetshe is full of excitement! It is an unattractive place, with streets and a few shops and a post office. We pay two ceremonious visits—one to the Military and one to the Post Office.

The French Lieutenant is most kind and helpful. He offers us hospitality, but we assure him that our tents are quite comfortable where we have pitched them by the river bank. We accept, however, an invitation to dinner on the following day. The Post Office, where we go for letters, is a longer business. The Postmaster is out, and everything is consequently locked up. However, a small boy goes in search of him, and in due course (half an hour!) he arrives, full of urbanity, bids us welcome to Hasetshe, orders coffee for us, and only after a prolonged exchange of compliments comes to the business in hand—letters.

‘But there is no hurry,’ he says, beaming. ‘Come again tomorrow. I shall be delighted to entertain you.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Max says, ‘we have work to do. We should like our letters tonight.’

Ah, but here is the coffee! We sit and sip. At long last, after polite exhortations, the Postmaster unlocks his private office and starts to search. In the generosity of his heart he urges on us additional letters addressed to other Europeans. ‘You had better have these,’ he says. ‘They have been here six months. No one has come for them. Yes, yes, surely they will be for you.’

Politely but firmly we refuse the correspondence of Mr Johnson, M. Mavrogordata, and Mr Pye. The Postmaster is disappointed.

‘So few?’ he says. ‘But come, will you not have this large one here?’

But we insist on sticking strictly to those letters and papers that bear our own names. A money order has come, as arranged, and Max now goes into the question of cashing it. This, it seems, is incredibly complicated. The Postmaster has never seen a money order before, we gather, and is very properly suspicious of it. He calls in two assistants, and the question is debated thoroughly, though with great good humour. Here is something entirely novel and delightful on which everyone can have a different opinion.

The matter is finally settled and various forms signed when the discovery is made that there is no actual cash in the Post Office! This, the Postmaster says, can be remedied on the morrow! He will send out and collect it from the Bazaar.

We leave the Post Office somewhat exhausted, and walk back to the spot by the river which we have chosen—a little way from the dust and dirt of Hasetshe. A sad spectacle greets us. ’Isa, the cook, is sitting by the cooking-tent, his head in his hands, weeping bitterly.

What has happened?

Alas, he replies, he is disgraced. Little boys have collected round to jeer at him. His honour has gone! In a moment of inattention dogs have devoured the dinner he had prepared. There is nothing left, nothing at all but some rice.

Gloomily we eat plain rice, whilst Hamoudi, Aristide and Abdullah reiterate to the wretched ’Isa that the principal duty of a cook is never to let his attention wander from the dinner he is cooking until the moment when that dinner is safely set before those for whom it is destined.

’Isa says that he feels he is unequal to the strain of being a cook. He has never been one before (‘That explains a good deal!’ says Max), and would prefer to go into a garage. Will Max give him a recommendation as a first-class driver?

Max says certainly not, as he has never seen him drive.

‘But,’ says ’Isa, ‘I have wound the handle of Big Mary on a cold morning. You have seen that?’

Max admits that he has seen that.

‘Then,’ says ’Isa, ‘you can recommend me!’