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 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

A

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