volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Attempt to Sink our Raft. 255
leaving. I told the raftsmen to go on untying the
rope, and as the raft began to move we stood round the
of&cial and elbowed him to the side of it, and a moment
came when he had either to jump off quickly to get
ashore, or to stay on the raft and go with us down the
river. The effect of this dilemma on his mind was
amusingly represented in the expression of his face.
He jumped short and found himself up to his knees in
water, and we continued our journey down the river.
The stream of the Tigris at Takrit was broad and
full and the current strong, and when once we got out
into the middle of the river we made good progress.
On the 15th we met a strong south-easterly wind, which
sometimes blew us up the river, and the work of the
raftsmen was hard. During a sudden squall which
turned the raft round and round, one of them jumped
up and shaking his fist at the sky, shouted out, " Ya
Allah, they say Thou art compassionate and merciful
it is a lie or Thou wouldst never have made such a wind
as this ! " Towards evening the wind dropped and a
thick white mist rose up from the river and covered
the mist
us over, and we tied up at once for the night ;
was bitterly cold and wetted us effectually and we all
were glad to huddle together in our little shelter.
About 3 a.m. on the i6th, the coldest time of the night,
one of the raftsmen woke us up and whispered, "hurma,
hurma," i.e., " thieves, thieves," and we got up quietly
and drew our revolvers. The white mist hung like a
pall over the river, several feet above the surface of the
water, and was dimly lighted by the moon. Looking
upstream, the direction in which the raftsman pointed,
we saw a man swimming down towards us with his left
hand, and holding a large knife in his right. He was
making directly for us with the intention of slitting
our outer row of skins as he passed by. The effect of
this would be to submerge one side of the raft and to
make her immovable. At the same moment we saw
on the river bank a party of men running towards us
with the view of attacking us as soon as their companion
in the river had slit the skins ; they came on quite