Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 211.djvu/9

 BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.

No. MCCLXXV. JANUARY 1922. Vol. CCXI.

ECHOES FROM THE MARSHES.

(BEING FURTHER TALES OF THE MA’ADAN.)

BY FULANAIN.

BLACKMAIL.

IT was on one of my infrequent expeditions to Basra that I noticed, lying beside the I.W.T. workshops, a dirty, disreputable, neglected little motor-launch. Its once white paint was brown and blistered, its once shining brass-work black; but none the less I looked at it with covetous eyes. No one else seemed to want it, and, indeed, it was so small that probably no one could find a use for it. It must have been sent out to this country when the cry was going up for more and more river transport, on the offchance of its proving useful. And now I hoped to supply the chance; for the greater part of the district of which I was Assistant Political Officer was composed of marshes, hitherto on navigated by native craft—challabiyahs, taradas, mashhufs, as the various types of pitched canoe are called. This tiny launch, with its shallow draught, would enable me to move about much more easily and quickly than before.

To my great satisfaction, I found on applying for the launch that my surmise had been correct. She was "nobody's child," and I had no difficulty in getting her allotted to me. It was a very spick-and-span little craft, gleaming with fresh white paint and polished brass-work, which set out a few weeks later on its maiden voyage into the marshes.

This was to be a voyage purely of discovery. I had never been farther than a day's journey in the wilderness of reeds and water, and now I VOL CCXI.—MCCLXXV.