A number had paid the penalty through
tampering with unexploded grenades and "dud" shells, and left their own
bones to be scattered around among the dead they had been looting. The
trenches were a veritable Golgotha with skulls everywhere and dismembered
legs still clad with puttees and boots.
At Kut we disembarked to do the remaining hundred miles to Baghdad by rail
instead of winding along for double the distance by river, with a good
chance of being hung up for hours, or even days, on some shifting
sand-bar. At first sight Kut is as unpromising a spot as can well be
imagined, with its scorching heat and its sand and the desolate
mud-houses, but in spite of appearances it is an important and thriving
little town, and daily becoming of more consequence.
The railroad runs across the desert, following approximately the old
caravan route to Baghdad. A little over half-way the line passes the
remaining arch of the great hall of Ctesiphon. This hall is one hundred
and forty-eight feet long by seventy-six broad. The arch stands
eighty-five feet high. Around it, beneath the mounds of desert sand, lies
all that remains of the ancient city. As a matter of fact the city is by
no means ancient as such things go in Mesopotamia, dating as it does from
the third century B.C., when it was founded by the successors of Alexander
the Great.
My first night in Baghdad I spent in General Maude's house, on the
river-bank.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29