volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

254 Takrtt.
said that she had been sent to look at a " karakuz," ' or
puppet-show, in the house of a friend, and that she would
not be told he was gone until the next day.
There was comparatively little water in the river and
our progress was very slow ixntil we passed the mounds
of Nirnrud ; the nights were very long, about fourteen
hours, and between i and 3.30 a.m. the bitter cold
seemed to penetrate into the bones. On the third day,
December 13th, an easterly gale, laden with sleet and
snow, blew us into the bank, and we remained tied up
there the whole day. That night animals of some kind,
probably jackals, took advantage of the noise of the
wind and the darkness, and stole two chickens and a
quarter of a sheep which were hanging behind our
shelter ; in the morning we saw the marks of their paws
on the planks of
On the following
the raft and the sides of the bank.
day (December 14th) we arrived at
Takrit,
natives
where we were anxiously awaited by several
who had been advised that we were bringing
parcels and letters for them.
had befriended me the year
The Ka'im Makam, who
before, was absent, and
his locum tenens was a young and very officious person,
who walked on to our raft and began asking what were
the contents of our cases, to whom they were consigned,
etc. I told Nimrud to tell him that I knew no Turkish,
and that I wished to know by what authority he had
come on the raft. When Nimrud translated this question
he became very angry, and blustered and said that
he had the right to search all rafts that stopped at
Takrit, and to levy a tax on them if they were carrying
merchandise ; and he ordered Nimrud to open the
boxes and show him their contents. I told Nimrud
not to open the boxes and to answer no questions.
Meanwhile the change in raftsmen had taken place,
and our two new raftsmen went to the end of the raft
and began to untie the mooring-rope. When the official
saw this he became angrier than ever, and ordered a
man on the bank to go and fetch men to stop us from
1 The Punch and Judy show of the Muhammadans.