Travelling in the desert is very pleasant if the stage is not a very long one. To start about sunrise or a little after, ride three or four hours, then have a lunch of bread and melons, and finish up with another three hours' ride, makes a very pleasant picnic; but when the stage takes twelve or thirteen hours to do, the pleasure becomes a burden. At the end of a short stage it is delightful to sit outside our tent and enjoy the cool breeze of the desert, and watch the stars peeping out one after the other. Sometimes, however, the weather is not such as to allow of this form of enjoyment. When we were coming home in 1907, in crossing the desert we came in for some tremendously heavy thunderstorms. One night we were simultaneously awakened by a tremendous gust of wind which threatened to bring down the tent. We sprang up and clung to the poles; but thinking the whole structure was bound to fall, and preferring to be outside, I forsook my pole to which I had been clinging, and rushed out into the pouring rain. My husband went to call some of the men, and found them all happily asleep in the carriage: with great difficulty he awoke them, and together they made secure all the tent-pegs. By this time the great fury of the storm was over, and we crept inside the tent, wet, cold, and miserable. Wonderful to say, neither of us caught cold after our adventure. The next morning we spread all our wet bedding, &c., in the sun to dry; and just as it was nearly ready, down came another storm and soaked everything again. Such are some of the joys of travelling in the desert. CHAPTER XIII PIONEER MEDICAL MISSION WORK IN MOSUL (NINEVEH) [6] Winning the confidence of the people--Native surgery--Difficulties to be overcome--Backward patients--Encouraging work--Prevalent diseases--Lunatics--Possible future of Mesopotamia. "... My soul is full Of pity for the sickness of this world; Which I will heal, if healing may be found!" Sir E. Arnold. It is often thought that in the East, whenever an English doctor arrives at a city, patients throng to him from all quarters. This is only partially true, at least in the near East. If medicine and attendance are granted free indiscriminately, doubtless at first crowds will attend the out-patient department, many coming merely out of curiosity. If good work is to be done, it is better to make some charge, however small, exempting only the very poor. This principle has, I believe, been adopted by all our medical missionaries, and fees thus earned go to help in making the work self-supporting.