Natives often use a single inflated skin for travelling down the river, sometimes even going as far as Baghdad on one. This latter feat a man has been known to accomplish in twenty-four hours. It is by no means as easy as it looks, to balance yourself on a skin; when bathing we have often tried, but found it very difficult. The Arabs use these skins as ferry-boats when the river is unfordable. They take off their garments and tie them round their head as a turban, so that when they reach the opposite side their clothes are quite dry. In a village near Mosul I have seen women crossing the river in this way, many of them carrying a child on her back in addition to a large bundle of clothes which she has been washing in the river. The Arabs, both men, women, and children, are quite at home in the river--swimming as easily as ducks, and playing all manner of games in the water; it is quite interesting to watch them from a distance. The women do not take off their long loose garment, but just hold the skirt of it in their teeth if it impedes their swimming. Last summer we were staying for a time at a castle quite near the river, about an hour's ride from Mosul; while there we bathed almost every day, a small wood running to the edge of the water acting as a convenient dressing-place. The owner of the castle gave notice to all the villagers that the wood was "hareem" each afternoon, so we were always quite private. I engaged the services of an Arab woman to teach me to swim whenever my husband could not be there. She could swim like a fish herself, but had no idea of teaching any one else; however, before our holidays were over I had mastered the art. She would make me put one hand on her shoulder and then call out: "Now, kick"--that was the sum total of her instructions, "kick"! The river is considered very dangerous for bathing unless you know it well. Shortly before we were there last year, an Arab woman had been drowned. She was a good swimmer, and was swimming in deep water, when suddenly she called out that she was drowning, and before any one could go to her rescue she sank, and was quickly carried down the stream by the current; when the body was recovered life was quite extinct. For a few days the women were too frightened to bathe in that place, thinking that death was due to something in the water; but when we arrived a fortnight later they had apparently quite recovered from their fright, and were bathing as usual.