Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 211.djvu/10

2 wanted to push straight across the marsh country, and see what lay on the other side. My guide was to be my old friend Haji Rikkan; but he frankly considered to object of my journey a childish one.

"More than once," he said, "have I reached the other side in my mashhuf, and there dwelt the same Arabs as ourselves, building the same reed huts, and tending the same buffaloes. Why should your honour travel so far for nought? I am ready to swear, by the Three Names of Allah, that this side and the other are as like as two grains of rice."

As I would not be dissuaded, Haji Rikkan decided in his own mind that I had some secret purpose; and it was true that, though really actuated by pure curiosity as to what lay beyond the marshes, I was always glad of an opportunity of seeing more of the Ma'adan themselves.

Secure in their islands among the high reeds, separated from civilisation and an interfering government by miles of unmapped swamp, the marsh Arabs live a life of primitive simplicity and primitive passions perhaps not far removed, except in time, from that lived by their ancestors of the ancient "Sea Land." Clad in the minimum of clothing, or in none, the marshman weaves his rush mats, builds his low arched hut, and tends his buffaloes; to slay his enemy and to steal whenever a chance presents itself, to rule his daily life strictly according to tribal custom, and to work no more than is necessary for a bare living, is roughly his code of social obligation.

The Ma'adan of my district seemed to lay special stress on the second of these duties. As daring and successful thieves they were unsurpassed, and the stretch of river running here through marsh country on both sides gave them continual opportunities of stealing from the Government boats which passed up and down. Now I hoped that my new acquisition, the little motorlaunch, would enable me to learn more about these people at first hand, and so to discover how best to deal with their thieving propensities.

It was a clear fresh morning of late spring when the launch left the main river and struck into the Shatut Canal, which soon broadened out into wide open stretches of grey-brown water. Here, later in the year, would lie broad green fields of rice, but at present the flood water was still depositing its rich silt, on which the success of the future crop depended.

Gradually, as we went farther and farther from the river, the water became less muddy. We passed thick clumps of gossab, which grew larger and more frequent until they closed us in on both sides, and we found ourselves winding in and out of a tortuous little channel of deep clear water. Hidden securely from the sight of all but the marsh birds, which now and then flapped out of the reed with angry cries at