It was on one of my infrequent expeditions to Basra that I noticed, lying beside the I.W.T. workshops, a dirty, disreputable, neglected little motor-launch. Its once white paint was brown and blistered, its once shining brasswork black; but none the less I looked at it with covetous eyes. No one else seemed to want it, and, indeed, it was so small that probably no one else could find a use for it. It must have been sent out to this country when the cry was going up for more and more river transport, on the offchance of its proving useful. And now I hoped to supply the chance; for the greater part of the district of which I was Assistant Political Officer was composed of marshes, hitherto only navigated by VOL. CCXI.-NO. MCCLXXV.

native craft-challabiyahs, taradas, mashhufs, as the various types of pitched canoe are called. This tiny launch, with its shallow draught, would enable me to move about much more easily and quickly than before.

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To my great satisfaction, I found found on applying for the launch that my surmise had been correct. She was nobody's child," and I had no difficulty in getting her allotted to me. It was a very spickand-span little craft, gleaming with fresh white paint and polished brass-work, which set out a few weeks later on its maiden voyage into the marshes.

This was to be a voyage purely of discovery. I had never been farther than a day's journey into the wilderness of reeds and water, and now I

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wanted to push straight across the marsh country, and see what lay on the other side. My guide was to be my old friend Haji Rikkan; but he frankly considered the object of my journey a childish one.

"More than once," he said, "have I reached the other side in my mashhuf, and there dwelt the same Arabs as ourselves, building the same reed huts, and tending the same buffaloes. Why should your honour travel so far for nought? I am ready to swear, by the Three Names of Allah, that this side and the other are as like as two grains of rice."

As I would not be dissuaded, Haji Rikkan decided in his own mind that I had some secret purpose; and it was true that, though really actuated by pure curiosity as to what lay beyond the marshes, I was always glad of an opportunity of seeing more of the Ma'adan themselves.

Secure in their islands among the high reeds, separated from civilisation and an interfering government by miles of unmapped swamp, the marsh Arabs live a life of primitive simplicity and primitive passions perhaps not far removed, except in time, from that lived by their ancestors of the ancient Sea Land." Clad in the minimum of clothing, or in none, the marshman weaves his rush mats, builds his low arched hut, and tends his buffaloes; to slay his enemy and to steal whenever a chance presents itself, to rule his daily life strictly according to tribal

custom, and to work no more than is necessary for a bare living, is roughly his code of social obligation.

The Ma'adan of my district seemed to lay special stress on the second of these duties. As daring and successful thieves they were unsurpassed, and the stretch of river running here through marsh country on both sides gave them continual opportunities of stealing from the Government boats which passed up and down. Now I hoped that my new acquisition, the little motorlaunch, would enable me to learn more about these people at first hand, and so to discover how best to deal with their thieving propensities.

It was a clear fresh morning of late spring when the launch left the main river and struck into the Shatut Canal, which soon broadened out into wide open stretches of grey-brown water. Here, later in the year, would lie broad green fields of rice, but at present the flood water was still depositing its rich silt, on which the success of the future crop depended.

Gradually, as we went farther and farther from the river, the water became less muddy. We passed thick clumps of gossab, which grew larger and more frequent until they closed us in on both sides, and we found ourselves winding in and out of a tortuous little channel of deep clear water. Hidden securely from the sight of all but the marsh birds, which now and then flapped out of the reeds with angry cries at

we could see nothing ourselves but the thick walls of gossab. This reed furnishes the marsh Arab with his household fuel, and with the material from which he weaves mats to build his house, or to sell, through some such intermediary as Haji Rikkan, to the ordinary tribesman or town-dweller.

Now we felt the fresh breeze again in our faces, for we left the sheltering gossab and came out before a wide stretch of bardi: good grazing for the buffaloes this, and useful too for making ropes, and for placing against the walls of the frail reed huts to keep out the piercing winds of winter. The channel ran straight ahead, as far as the eye could see, as though it had been cut by the hand of man; and I learned some time later that it was indeed a remnant, the sole fragment left through the centuries, of one of the great irrigation canals which of old made Mesopotamia a fertile land. The little launch made her way with difficulty here, for the weeds were thick. Masses of pink-flowered "jat," a delicacy highly prized by the buffaloes, clustered round the stems of the reeds, and the surface of the water was completely covered by a tiny white flower, like wild strawberry blossom, which made so thick a carpet of bloom as to hide even its own leaves from sight. Here and there floated placidly the flat dull green leaves of the

Now we passed the first group of the small islands, "ishans" as they are called, on which the marsh Arabs live. They were deserted; only a few mud-ovens, round and smoke-blackened, showed that not long ago they had been busy centres of life. Small wonder is it that, living in such remote fastnesses in homes so easily and quickly moved, the Ma'adan felt safe to raid and rob without fear of reprisals from Government.

The bardi began to give place to mardi, which, in spite of the similarity of the names, is totally unlike its humbler brother. For the mardi is the giant of the marshes, towering above one's head to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and provides the marsh Arab with the long stout poles with which he propels his mashhuf.

Suddenly breaking through the gloom of these silent, stately monarchs of the " Hor," we came upon a wide open sea, blue as the Mediterranean, and covered with "white horses." The wind, which we had not felt in the shelter of the mardi, was here a thorough-going gale, and Haji Rikkan was doubtful about crossing.