volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Tablets from the Diydld District. 127
questions, and when they had received a little present
for their trouble they withdrew, and I had no further
bother until I reached Basrah. Colonel Talbot's influence
was very great, and old Ya'kub Thaddeus, the
great authority on British prestige in Baghdad, told me
that if he were to stay in Baghdad he would make things
to be as they were in the days of the great Bali6s Beg,
who was, of course, Rawlinson.
Having acquired all the tablets I had money to pay
for, I made a little journey to the mounds on the
Diyala river where the natives had found some tablets
and several small terra-cotta figures and bronzes, all of
which were in a poor state of preservation. I acquired
a selection from the " find," and took the objects to
Baghdad and arranged for them to be sent to London,
where they would be paid for.
Meanwhile the Delegate did not find Baghdad an
enjoyable place to live in, and he was anxious to leave
it. White also found nothing to do in the town, and the
heat, for the weather had suddenly become very hot,
caused him acute discomfort. I discussed with Colonel
Talbot the possibility of returning to London via Tudmur
(Palmyra) and Damascus, which latter city I was most
anxious to see, but he would not allow me to attempt
the journey. The Jabur and Shammar tribes were
fighting their neighbours and raiding caravans, and the
whole country north of Der az-Zur was in a very unsettled
state. Even the Government tattariyin or postal
couriers had to be provided with escorts. Matters
were no better on the banks of the Tigris than they
were on the banks of the Khabur and Euphrates, for
about this time the Hamawand and other Kurdish
tribes held up and pillaged a caravan of 300 camels,
although provided with a military escort, within sight
of the town of Karkuk,^ where there was a large Turkish
^ A town on the left bank of the Hasa Su, about 190 miles north
of Baghdad on the main road between Baghdid and M6sul. The
name " Karkuk " is well known in Syriac under the form v^a^ii