volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

252 The American Mission at Mosul.
and as Mr. Alfred Holland was at Shushtar establishing
a branch of the firm of Lynch Bros., it was impossible
to obtain his services. I therefore decided to suggest
to Nimrud Rassam that he should come to Baghdad
with me, and help me to look after the work, and pay
the men, and superintend things generally during my
absence for short periods. I was very anxious to float
down the Euphrates from Musayyib, and to see various
mounds, etc., on the Hindiyah Canal, and I could not
do this unless I had an overseer. Nimrud and I were
discussing with the workmen on the 4th the size of the
raft which I should require, and I took the opportunity
of asking him to go with me to Der as overseer. I
knew that he had never been to Baghdad and that he
had not seen Basrah and the ebb and flow of the tide
in the Shatt al-'Arab, and that he wished to go with me,
but he gave me dozens of reasons why he could not go,
and finally said he would not go, and that his wife's
relatives would never allow him to leave Mosul. I said
no more then, but ordered a good-sized raft to be made
as soon as possible. I then completed all the transactions
about manuscripts which were still open, and
had cases made and carefully packed my collections
in them ready for transport to Baghdad. During the
last week of my stay in Mosul, I made the acquaintance
of Mr. McDowell, the successor of Mr. Ainslie in the
American Mission, and Dr. Wishart, an American physician.
The latter had been intending to ride to Baghdad, via
Karkuk, on business, but was prevented by the very bad
weather and the snow in the hills. I offered him a
passage on the raft, which he accepted, and thus I gained
an instructive and very agreeable companion for my
journey. On Sunday, December 7th, Nimrud suddenly
announced that he had made up his mind to come with
me, and I was glad, for his loyalty and devotion to our
work had been beyond all praise. Mrs. Rassam, the
mother of Nimrud, superintended the baking of breadcakes
and preparation of the food, and Christians and
Muslims alike vied with each other in sending us little
gifts of sweet biscuits, sweetmeats, etc. As we expected