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Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm sure it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Kraaaaaa. Written. I have. Pprrpffrrppffff. Done. I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye.
I was tired of travelling in this fashion, moving so slowly and seeing so little of the country. When, then, an old Arab belonging to the caravan came riding up from Baghdad on a fine Arab horse, I determined to try to get away from my party with his assistance. He consented to accompany me if I paid him twenty-five kran a day.
To avoid further unpleasantness I went to the governor, who for six kran gave me a passport. I had now become so friendly with the Arabs that I obtained the loan of a horse instead of a mule. We set out again at nine o'clock, and rode all night in the most brilliant moonshine.
When I reached Baghdad I had only a little over £5 left, all in Persian silver kran, a kran being worth about seven-pence; and I could not get any more money until I reached Teheran, 600 miles away.
Next night we rode eight hours to the town of Bakuba, which is surrounded by a wood of fine date-palms. I was sitting talking to one of my travelling companions when three Turkish soldiers came and demanded to see my passport. "I have no passport," I replied. "Well, then, pay us ten kran apiece, and you shall pass the frontier all the same."
I, too, might go with them on paying fifty kran for the hire of a mule; food and drink I must provide for myself. It was a pleasant journey which began at ten o'clock on the evening of June 6. Two Arabs led me on my mule slowly and solemnly through the narrow streets of Baghdad in the warm summer night. An oil lamp flickered dully here and there, but the bazaars were brisk and lively.
As for Mohammed, he sewed on, and while his sandalled feet worked the treadle his mind worked out a problem something like this: Three long-shirts a day and an abba, at one kran per shirt and two for the abba, thirty-five krans per week, how long will it take to pay the dowry? An abba is a large over-garment worn by both men and women in Arabia.
It is like a cape or overcoat but has no sleeves nor buttons. The Arabs in Bahrein put a great deal of pretty embroidery work on these garments and some of them are worth twenty or thirty dollars. But the sewing is done very cheaply. A kran is a Persian coin worth about ten cents; can you figure out how much Mohammed earned in a month?
In a country where money bears a high value, as proved by the fact that accounts are still reckoned in dinars, an imaginary coin, of which one thousand go to a silver kran and fifty to a copper shahi, the depreciation I have mentioned is a very serious affair, for it touches the mass of the people sorely.
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