As a race they are inclined to be vain and
boastful, and are ever ready to nurse a grievance against the British
Government, feeling that they have been provided with an education but no
means of support. The government felt that it might help to calm them if a
regiment were recruited and sent to Mesopotamia. How they would do in
actual fighting had never been demonstrated up to the time I left the
country, but they take readily to drill, and it was amusing to hear them
ordering each other about in their clipped English. They were used for
garrisoning Baghdad.
After we left Amara we continued our winding course up-stream. A boat
several hours ahead may be seen only a few hundred yards distant across
the desert. The banks are so flat and level that it looks as if the other
vessels were steaming along on land. The Arab river-craft was most
picturesque. At sunset a mahela, bearing down with filled sail, might
have been the model for Maxfield Parrish's _Pirate Ship_. The Arab women
ran along the bank beside us, carrying baskets of eggs and chickens, and
occasionally melons. They were possessed of surprising endurance, and
would accompany us indefinitely, heavily laden as they were. Their robes
trailed in the wind as they jumped ditches, screaming out their wares
without a moment's pause. An Indian of the boat's crew was haggling with a
woman about a chicken. He threw her an eight-anna piece.
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