volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

28o Confiscation of Arabic Manuscripts.
with lists of names of stones, plants, fish, birds, garments,^
etc.
In the early days of February we had a spell of very
bad weather. It began with falls of sleet, which soon
stopped, and were succeeded by icy-cold winds. As
we had already burnt up the sage bush in the desert
about us for miles we could make no fires, and everyone
suffered from the cold. At night the water froze solid
in the jars, and they broke and caused us a good deal
of trouble. After the frosts came heavy rains, which
went on for several days, and filled the trenches with
water and made work impossible, but in order to keep
the men occupied I made them dig up a large number
of the fine baked bricks of Nebuchadnezzar II and
cover the floors of their tents and huts with layers of
them two or three bricks thick. They thus obtained
dry places to sleep upon.
On February 9th I began to raise the question of
the export of the Arabic, Syriac and other Oriental
MSS. which I acquired that year in Assyria, and sent
two large cases of them to the Customs House, so that
they might be passed out in the ordinary way of business.
The Mudir of Customs opened both boxes and
had the MSS. examined carefully and sorted into pUes
according to the language in which they were written.
He was assisted by one of the chief officials of the
Ministry of Public Instruction (Ma'arafah). The Syriac
MSS. they passed forthwith, and gave me the rafttyah,
or export permit, without delay ; they declined to charge
any duty on them, as, being "books of the Christians,"
they had no value. When they were going through
the Arabic MSS. they found written inside on the covers
of several of them the word "wakf," i.e., "religious
bequest," sometimes followed by the name of the pious
donor or that of the institution to which the book was
bequeathed. The Mudir then told me that I had either
stolen the MSS. myself or got others in Mosul to steal
them for me, and that it was his sad duty to confiscate
Brit. Mus. No. 92,611. Ibid., p. 150.