volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

226 Departure of Muhammad the Guide.
order to find Nimrud Rassam, who was required to
testify to my respectability, and to guarantee that I
had no sinister designs on the garrison. After a wait
which appeared endless Nimrud arrived, and having
identified me and taken Muhammad under his charge,
the great doors were thrown open and we were allowed
to go to Nimrud's house. I got the beasts unloaded
at once and sent them and the men with them to the
khan, and arranged for their being well fed for a week ;
for several days past neither we nor they had had much
to eat, and we had marched many hours each day, and
were very tired. It had taken us twenty-three days to
travel^ from Damascus to Mosul, via Tudmur, Der az-
Zur, 'Iran, Sinjar and Tall 'A'far, but then it must be
remembered that we could not change our beasts anywhere
on the road. The distance from Damascus to
Der az-Zur is about 250 miles, and from Der az-Zur
to Mosul about 240 miles, in all 490 mUes ; but on several
occasions we had to make long detours in order to avoid
a body of the Shammar Arabs, and we must have covered
from first to last quite 550 mUes. Our shortest day's
march was about twenty miles, and our longest about
forty-five miles, and our average day's march was about
twenty-four miles ; our most successful marches were
those made at night. After a week's rest the muleteers
and their beasts were hired by a merchant who was
going to Diar Bakr, and those kindly men received
their hire and a gift apiece, and left me with many grateful
words. Muhammad and his camels were my guests
for a week longer, and then one day he got up suddenly
and said he wanted to go back to Damascus that night.
I was very sorry to part with him, but he insisted on
going, and late that evening he and his nephew rode
quietly out of the SinjeLr Gate and were soon swallowed
up in the darkness. He took with him my sincere
gratitude and my gifts, viz., a good compass, a large
clasp-knife and my small revolver, and I saw him no more.
His kindness to me and forethought for me were great. I
felt then, and still feel, that but for him I should never have
crossed that great and terrible Syrian desert in safety.