volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

130 Fish-Traps on the Tigris.
casting out ropes and hauling on them to get the ship
afloat we watched the natives on the bank emptying
their fish-traps. These are square enclosures of reed
mats fastened to pegs driven in the river near the bank,
and have an entrance on one side only. This entrance
is through a hollow cone of reeds with the smaller end
inside the trap. The fish swim in through the large
end, which faces up-stream, and having pushed their
way through the loosely made smaller end are unable
to return, and are caught in the trap. After two hours'
hard work, and darkness having fallen, we tied up for
the night. We got afloat at five the next morning
(March 9th) and steamed till sunset when we tied up
for the night. We reached 'Amarah at 1.30 p.m. on
Sunday, March loth, and left again at 3
p.m., and as
there were some bends in the river ahead of us which
could only be safely negotiated by daylight, we tied up
early. We started again at daybreak and lost some
time in getting round a bend or " elbow " ; it formed
almost a right angle, and the ship had to be warped
round it with guiding ropes held by some of the crew
on each bank. We passed Kurnah, the so-called
" Garden of Eden," at 11.50 a.m., and arrived at
Basrah at 3.35, March nth. Basrah is about 300
miles from Baghdad by direct route, and 510 miles by
river ; the s.s. " Khalifah " covered this distance in a
little over forty-three hours.
On my arrival I found Mr. Alfred Holland waiting
for me, and with him was Mr. W. A. Buchanan, who
had rendered me such great assistance in shipping my
boxes of tablets the year before, and was ready to help
me again. I handed over to him the boxes and manuscripts
which I had brought down the river with me,
and he and Captain Somerset helped me to get them on
board the s.s. "Arabia," the British India Mail Steamer.
Mr. Robertson, the British Consul of Basrah, of whom I
have already spoken (see vol. i, p. 167), invited White and
myself to stay with him at the Consulate, but White
preferred to be free from the restraint of the British
Consul's house, and asked me to find him a lodging