When a European travels, a little hut is built for his convenience. A light framework of lath is run up, just large enough to hold a travelling bedstead and chair; this is covered with felt or water-proof sheeting and placed upon the raft. On arrival at Baghdad the whole is sold for about half its original price. The owner of the keleq sells the planks of wood forming the floor of the raft, packs up carefully his skins, and returns by land to Mosul, as the current is too strong to allow of his return the same way as he came. He is then ready to be hired for another journey. In good weather a journey on a raft is a very pleasant mode of travelling. It has many advantages over caravaning by land. There is no need of the early morning or midnight scramble preparatory to the start. The owner simply ties up after sunset, and as soon as dawn appears he quietly slips the rope, and off the raft glides, while the passenger is still sweetly slumbering, unconscious of any movement. In summer, however, the river is the happy hunting-ground of flies and mosquitoes, the result being that rest and sleep are impossible either by day or night. In a storm, too, the keleq is not a very secure place of refuge. An English lady travelling from Mosul to Baghdad was once caught in a hurricane and her keleq blown about in such a way that she expected every minute to find herself precipitated into the river, while her little hut and all its contents were saturated through and through with water. A raft is a good target for the Arabs whose villages lie along the banks of the river. An Englishman once placed his bicycle, which he was taking home, on the top of his hut, thinking to keep it out of harm's way. The Arabs, seeing this extraordinary-looking machine, at once came to the conclusion that it was a Maxim gun or some such deadly weapon. They immediately opened fire, and continued shooting till the raft was out of sight--fortunately with no serious result. The French Consul at Mosul was also attacked by Arabs when travelling on a keleq. For seven hours they kept up an active fusilade, both parties making good use of their guns. The merchants of Mosul use these rafts for exporting their goods to Baghdad and other places. After the harvest enormous keleqs may daily be seen leaving Mosul, loaded heavily with wheat and corn. All goods for the south are exported in this way. For these large commercial rafts, about three to four hundred skins are used, while others contain from fifty to two hundred, according to the size of raft and number of passengers. A European travelling alone would need about one hundred and fifty to two hundred skins to make a fairly comfortable raft.