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Already she had seen the ruins on the western shore of the Nile; she was familiar with Medinat-Habu, with Deir-al-Bahari, with Kurna, with the Ramesseum, with the tombs of the Kings and of the Queens. They had landed at a point that lay to the south of Thebes, and now seemed to be making for Medinat-Habu. "Where are we going, Hamza?" she asked. "Yes," he replied.
It is dusty, it is arid; it is haunted by swarms of flies, by the guardians of the ruins, and by men and boys trying to sell enormous scarabs and necklaces and amulets, made yesterday, and the day before, in the manufactory of Kurna.
Beyond Kurna the Tigris takes some immense curves so that at times you seem to see the sails of mahallas all round the horizon. We lay on deck, staring idly at the unvarying landscape which quivered under the sun. Occasionally Arab villages were passed, constructed out of the matting made from reeds, which is a local industry. The reeds grow in big patches all the way up the river banks.
The real attack was on Shaiba, and the battle lasted from 12 to 15 April. The Turks were completely defeated, with some 6000 casualties; but the most important effect was to convert the Arabs into our allies. The advantage was pressed in June, and on the 3rd Amara was captured seventy-five miles to the north of Kurna.
On the way to the tombs of the kings I went to the temple of Kurna, that lonely cenotaph, with its sand-colored massive facade, its heaps of fallen stone, its wide and ruined doorway, its thick, almost rough, columns recalling Medinet-Abu.
The railway from Kurna to Amara was nearing completion towards the end of November. It is possible for vessels of considerable size to traverse the whole length of the Shatt-el-Arab up to its point of commencement at Kurna. The railway, so long in coming, will make a great difference to the troops in the country during the next hot season.
Busra, our destination, lies about sixty miles from the mouth of the Shatt el Arab, which is the name given to the combined Tigris and Euphrates after their junction at Kurna, another fifty or sixty miles above. At the entrance to the river lies a sand-bar, effectively blocking access to boats of as great draft as the Saxon.
Since the time of the Ptolemies, it had been called Diospolis, and Ptolemais had taken its place as capital of the Thebaid. Already in Strabo's time it was split up. It formed on either side of the Nile groups of gigantic temples and palaces, monuments, and royal graves similar to those scattered to-day amongst Luxor, Karnak, Medinet-Habu, Deir-el-Bahari, and Kurna.
Overhead was an unclouded sky; at each side rose yellow limestone cliffs glaring in the noonday sun, and underneath white sand and limestone chips reflected the burning rays. Not a sign of vegetation relieved the eye in this waterless gorge during our one hour's ride from Kurna to the Tombs. "Backsheesh! backsheesh!" demanded the donkey boys, as we dismounted. "Why do you want backsheesh now?"
"The river Tigris plays the deuce with the surrounding country when it gets above itself, from melting snows coming down from the Caucasus, when it frequently tires of its own course and tries another. The river is the only drinking water, and you can imagine the state of it when Orientals have anything to do with it. A sign of its fruity state is the fact that sharks abound right up to Kurna.
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