volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

266 Difficulties of Water Supply.
had been employed by H. Rassam in excavation work
some ten years before, I welcomed them, and they
agreed to start work the next day. Before the end of
the first week there were one hundred men digging
at Der, and a few days later the number had risen to
two hundred. Many of the workmen brought their
wives and children with them; and they built booths
to live in, and settled down very quickly ; neither the
heat of the day nor the cold of the night seemed to trouble
them greatly. With their supply of food I had nothing
to do, but they expected me to provide them with water,
and it required three men and six donkeys working all
day long to keep the large water-pots filled.
On the third day the Delegate arrived from Baghdad
with his servant and baggage, and our camp was complete.
He brought with him a large wooden diwan, or
couch, a fine supply of large cushions, a couple of padded
quilts, a very elaborate water-pipe, and many miscellaneous
things. Unfortunately, he had omitted to
bring a brazier and charcoal for use in his tent at night,
and I was obliged to send a man on a camel into Baghdad,
twenty miles distant, that very day and buy one for him.
At sunset we lifted his diw§,n into his tent, and we saw
no more of him for the rest of the evening. In the
morning we brought it out, and he established himself
on it, and sat there reading and smoking most of the
day. By his side he kept his Kur'an and writing paper
and a brass scribe's box for pens and ink. He wore
an immaculate bright red wool tarbush, or " fez," a
black frock coat, light trousers and patent shoes, just
as he would have done in his office in Baghdad, and
he observed the canonical hours of prayer most carefully.
I never saw him go and look at the diggings,
but I knew that his lynx-eyed servant watched everything
that went on, and everyone who came to the camp
and went from it, and reported all he saw to his master.
At tea time he was always ready for a talk, and I found
that, although he was a good " traditionalist " {sunni),
and a believer in the Sultan's claim to be the Khalifah
of the Prophet, he was a keen student of the Shi'ite