Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/381

 Mesopotamia, without seeing any human habitations. You must not think of this desert as a sea of sand, but as an interminable green plain with only occasional, very slight undulations. The Arabs call it Bahr, the sea, and the caravans proceed in an absolutely straight line, taking their direction from artificial mounts which rise above the plain like prehistoric graves. They indicate that once upon a time a village existed here, and that, therefore, a well or a spring must be nearby. But the mounts often are six, ten or even twelve hours distant the one from the other. The villages have disappeared, the wells have gone dry, and the rivulets are bitterly salt. A few weeks later this green plain which now is nourished by copious daily dews will be a wild waste parched by the sun. The luxuriant growth of grass which today reaches to our stirrups will be withered and every water-course run dry. Then it will be necessary to follow the Tigris in a wide detour, and none but the ships of the desert, the camels, will be able to traverse this plain, and they only by night.

Our caravan consists of six hundred camels and four hundred mules. The big bags carried by the former contain almost exclusively palm-nuts for the dye houses of Aleppo, and cotton. The more valuable part of the freight, silk from Bagdad and shawls from Persia, pearls from Bassora, and good silver money which in Constantinople will be re- coined into bad piasters, is small in proportion to the bulk carried.

The camels go in strings of from ten to twenty, one behind the other. The owner rides ahead on a small donkey, and although his stirrups are short his feet almost touch the ground. He is continually shoving his pointed slippers into the flanks of his poor beast and placidly smoking his pipe. His servants are on foot. Unless the donkey leads, the camels refuse to stir. With long thoughtful strides they move along, reaching the while with their thin restless necks for thistles or thorns by the roadside. The mules are