volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

The Damascus-Baghdad Camel-Post. i6g
often allowed Englishmen and natives who were in a
hurry to ride with them, even though this was strictly
forbidden by the Government, both in Damascus and
in Baghdad.) I will send Muhammad to the British
Consulate and if you can arrange to ride with him to
Sukhnah do so, but you will do so at your own risk ;
I know nothing about it and have given you no authority
to do so. To reach Sukhnah you must pass through
Tudmur, and so you can complete your business there.
Although I am sending my camel-postman to Sukhnah
and to Sukhnah only, I shall not expect him to return
at once, so that if you can arrange with him to take
you through the Sinjar mountains to Mosul that is his
and your affair, and not mine. You will find travelling
with Muhammad, if you go with him, very hard work,
may Allah protect thee ! for he rides day and night."
As he walked to the door of his room with us, he turned
to me and said, " Muhammad will guide thee safely.
Keep sUence and use haste. Take few animals and
little baggage. Leave Damascus before the third day
1870 and 1884 the ofi&cial camel-post was managed by the British
Consul-Gener^ at Baghdad, but in the latter year the Turkish Government
established a camel-post, and the English Government weakly
agreed to withdraw theirs. The result was easily foreseen. The
Turkish Government broke faith with the shikhs, and refused to
pay them the subsidies which the British had paid, and the Arabs
in return robbed the mails and ill-treated the postmen. Finally the
Baghdad merchants found other ways of sending their letters, and
the Turkish camel-post came to an end. My camel-postman told me
that he used to ride from eighteen to twenty-two hours a day on an
average, and that he rarely rested more than two hours at a time on the
road. The distance from Damascus to Baghdad is between 400 and 450
miles, and he usually traversed it in five and a half days in the
summer and six and a half or seven in the spring and winter. He
once performed the journey in five days. He took a camel to carry
water, and if a traveller accompanied him, he took two. The places
he mentioned on his route were : TumSr (25 miles), Khin Ash-
Shamah (15 mUes), Kasr As-Segal, the deserts of Ha'il, Marrah,
Shamt, Lakitah and Sha'alan (50 miles), Wadi al-Walij, Shu'eb
Samhin (45 miles), Jabal Malusah, where there are wells (45 miles),
Kasr'Ewar in the Wadi Hawran (53 miles), Rijm as-Sabun (45 miles),
Kablsah village (38 miles), Hit (12 miles), Kasr Fallujah (85 miles),
Baghdad (50 miles).