Produced by Greg Bergquist and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN, KURNA.] IN MESOPOTAMIA BY MARTIN SWAYNE _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_ HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO MCMXVII _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ LORD RICHARD IN THE PANTRY THE SPORTING INSTINCT CUPID GOES NORTH HODDER AND STOUGHTON CONTENTS PAGE I THE GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN 1 II BASRA 19 III THE SICK AND WOUNDED 37 IV HEAT-STROKE 51 V MIRAGE 61 VI THE DAY'S WORK 71 VII THE NARROWS 85 VIII AMARA 101 IX ARABIAN COMEDY 121 X THE BATTLE OF THE BUND 131 XI EDEN REVISITED 159 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Garden of Eden, Kurna. _Frontispiece_ Towing on the Tigris. 9 A Convoy of Sick and Wounded. 27 The Hospital Washing. 45 Donkey Labour in the Heat of the Day. 63 On the Shatt-el-Arab near Basra. 81 Arab Belum on Tigris. 99 Ezra's Tomb. 117 Walled Village on Banks of Tigris. 135 The Tigris near Kurna. 143 IN MESOPOTAMIA I THE GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN There is nothing to suggest that you are approaching the gateway of the Garden of Eden when you reach the top of the Persian Gulf, unless the sun be that Flaming Sword which turns every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Of cherubim we could see no signs. We lay motionless awaiting orders by wireless. Of the country before us we knew next to nothing. We did not grasp that the great river at whose mouth we lay was called the Shatt-el-Arab and not the Tigris; and I do not think that a single one of us possessed a copy of the "Arabian Nights." Few of us knew anything about the gun-running troubles in the Persian Gulf of recent years, and of the exploits of the Royal Indian Marine.