It is always said, and generally believed, that the British signalize their occupation of a country by laying down a cricket pitch and building a church. They did all these things and more at Basra. There was a garrison church, a simple building with a special care for the temperature of a Gulf Sunday. There were several sports clubs, and one at Makina, which might be called the suburb of Ashar, had good tennis courts. Beyond, in the desert, was a racecourse where the local Derby and Grand National were run off. The ordinary native of Iran and of the "Land of the Two Rivers" has not hitherto shown any marked taste for either mild or violent physical exercise. But Basra, I found, was a noted exception to this, and youth of the place were badly bitten by the {25} sports mania. As the doctors would say, "the disease spread with alarming rapidity, and spared neither young nor old." After a few weeks devoted to picking up points as spectators at "soccer" matches, a native team would secure possession of a rather battered football and start work, "Basra Mixed" trying conclusions with "Ashar Bazaar," for example. The rules were neither Rugby nor Association, but a local extemporization of both; and the dress was not the classic costume of the British football field, but a medley of all the garbs of Asia. Stately Arabs in long flowing robes, suffering from the prevailing sports fever, would forget their dignity to the extent of running after a football and trying to kick it. Chaldean Christian would mingle in the scrum with Jew and Mussulman. Individual players sometimes received the kick intended for the ball. Off the field this would have led to racial trouble and perhaps bloodshed, but as a rule these slight departures from the strict football code were accepted in the best possible spirit, being regarded no doubt as part of the game itself. Of course things did not always run so smoothly. Sometimes the ball was entirely lost sight of, and lay lonely and isolated in some corner of the field, while the players would resolve themselves into a sort of Pan-Asian congress on the ethics of games in general. Everyone spoke at once and in his own tongue. On such occasions a passing British soldier would be summoned to assist at the deliberations, {26} and in "Na Poo" Arabic would straighten out the tangle. Then play would be resumed, everybody bowing to the superior wisdom of the soldier sahib, and accepting his decision unquestioningly. The youth of Basra, more precocious than their elders, converted the streets of Ashar into a playing-ground where tip-cat, bat and ball, marbles, diabolo, and sundry other forms of juvenile recreation found eager devotees at all hours of the day in narrow streets generally crowded with army transport.