volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

The Ferry at Dir az-Z4r. 201
soldiers did not appear until 3 p.m. it was too late to
start that day. Moreover, the soldiers said they must
go and bid their " houses " {j,.e., wives) farewell before
they left Der, and, of course, asked for " something on
account." I decided to cross the Euphrates that evening
so that we might be ready to make a start early the
following morning. At four o'clock we took our beasts
to the ferry and they were driven into two large boats,
one of which leaked. As we had hired both boats, and
this fact had in some extraordinary way become known,
all sorts of natives came down to the river and began
pushing their way into the boats in order to get a passage
across the river for nothing, and it was impossible to
stop them. The ferryman had placed the mules with
their loads on their backs in the middle of the second
boat, which was a very rickety affair, and told their
driver not to let them go further into the boat because
the timbers were weak. Just as the boat was being
pushed off there was an extra rush of men on to it,
with the result that the mules were pushed forward on
to the weak planks, and the whole floor of that part
of the boat collapsed, and the mules sank in the river
up to their necks. They were got out with great
difficulty, but not before our bedding and tent and a
box of provisions were soaked with water. It was
almost dark when we reached the other side, and we
were obliged to go to the local khan for the night. In
the evening I sent Muhammad out to gather what
information he could about the state of the country
through
returned
which we proposed to pass,
he was quite convinced that
and when he
we must not
attempt to travel to Sinjar by the east bank of the
Khabur. His opinion was shared by the soldiers and
by several Bagg^rah shekhs, and we decided to set
out the next morning for As-Saw'ar on the west bank
of the Khabur and to travel northwards.
We left Der az-Zur at 6 a.m., November 14th, and
marched for several hours across a perfectly waterless
desert in an eastward direction ; at 2 p.m. we passed over
a series of shallow depressions which in the rainy season