Anight my shallop, rustling thro' The low and bloomed foliage, drove By garden porches on the brim, Of good Haroun Alraschid. -Tennyson A CHAPTER III FTER spending several days and nights in indulging my spirit of romance in Bagdad, I was im pressed-not by its glitter and glamor-but by its sordidness. Fancy had taken wings and left in its wake the grim reality of the place. I saw no longer the scenes of bygone days with all their splendor; gone were my dreams of Araby. Bagdad, the capital of Iraq, appeared to me now in its true light. I saw its squalor and tragedy, its wretchedness and filth—the East Side in New York at its worst was a Paradise Alley in comparison. Once more I became my matter-of-fact self. Disappointed and sad on realizing that this was what I had come so far to see, I had a desire to leave it all behind me. I longed to be among my own kind and to hear my own language, and so I inquired where the foreigners of the city usually congregated. Fortunately I was invited to visit the Club on the river embankment. Through clouds of dust I came to the Alwiyah Club. The building surmounts a high wall. This is necessary as the river rises almost sixty feet at the time of the annual inundation. In the center of the river is a large island that is entirely submerged during the freshets. The waters of the mountain streams come a long way, absorbing, as they flow along, the alluvial soil of the district and feeding the green scum that gathers in the rivers at Bussorah, where lived Sinbad, the Sailor, and where the first cotton fields in history were cultivated. As I entered the building a crowd gathered to gaze at the lone American in his Sudan helmet, who had just arrived. They tried to make me feel at home and brought ice water, considered a treat in Iraq. An odd armchair, in which one sits with feet elevated, was brought in, and I needed very little urging to sink into its comfortable depths. The formalities over, the conversation naturally turned upon the country and its products. "We are in the Land of Two Rivers,' as Iraq has been poetically christened-a country created under a British mandate. That's why we British are here," said Crowthers, the banker from Basra. The new nation, he told me, includes old Mesopotamia. The work of organization was being carried on by Sir Henry Dobbs, the High Commissioner. Mr. Davison, his legal counsellor, who was temporarily borrowed from the Sudan, was being given a farewell "ancient and honorable" dinner, which I attended. He had just completed his work of preparing a constitution which is now awaiting the final confirmation of the newly-created Iraq parliament. The new-born flag of Iraq was cheered, together with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The native Assembly adjourned on August 2, after the declaration that Iraq is "a sovereign and independent state with rights indissoluble and inalienable." Doesn't that sound like Patrick Henry? "It is a hereditary monarchy, y' know," said Davison of the Sudan, "with a Senate and Assembly elected by two classes of qualified voters. The first, or secondary citizen, must be twenty years of age; the second, or primary, must be twenty-five (similar to the Constitution of the new Irish Free State). The people cannot be taxed either directly or indirectly without a vote |