Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 31, 2025
On reaching Basra he heard rumours of our coming expedition, but the most extreme apathy existed in the town. The Turks were indifferent, walking about smoking cigarettes and "making the shoulders to rise a leetle" as they talked. But they kept a watchful eye on the Arabs. When the Turks evacuated Basra a panic ensued.
With the rise of the strong political power of the Mohammedans enough of peace came to the East at least to permit the cultivation of arts and sciences to some extent again, and then at once the eminence of Jewish physicians, both as teachers and practitioners of medicine, once more becomes manifest. The first of the race who comes into prominence is Maser Djawah Ebn Djeldjal, of Basra.
In every important agricultural centre are to be found irrigation officers the first-fruits of British occupation. There was only one subject of conversation in Mesopotamia in the winter of 1918-1919, and that was the chances of getting back home. There was very little to do at Basra except watch steamers load up with the more fortunate candidates for demobilization and give them a send-off.
The great distances that separate the main stations in Mesopotamia, and the long sea voyage between Basra and Bombay, threw a considerable strain on that part of the army that sits in offices and deals with army forms. At Poona the supreme headquarters of the campaign resided amid the clear breezes of the Indian hills.
All his future actions were deeds of horror, except the contest which he carried on against the Turks for three years; and even in it he displayed none of that energy and heroic spirit which marked his first wars with that nation. The Persian army had made unsuccessful efforts to reduce the cities of Basra, of Bagdad, and of Mussul.
For these forces, if stretched out along one bank in single file, each man at arm's length from his fellow, would not nearly have reached from the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab to Basra itself. And the front lay more than two hundred miles above Basra. The sick and wounded began to arrive as soon as the wards were ready, coming up the creek in boats from the convoys that were in the river.
The minarets are shorn of their tops, and look like huge candlesticks. A dark passage, vaulted like the aisle of a cathedral, led down to covered bazaars. Again, at Basra, the House of Sinbad in Ashar Creek has quite the effect of a wonderfully staged production.
The name Shaiba covered an area in southern Iraq to the west of Basra, of indeterminate boundaries as far as I could tell; in fact although I've tried hard to locate it on several maps it doesn't seem to warrant a mention but it was the address for our tented transit camp, for an RAF station and for No.1 Base Workshops.
We had passed the vessels sunk by the Turks to bar the progress of the original expedition. Masts and a funnel are visible, standing clear of the main channel. Basra was like coming on a bit of the London Thames from a distance. Lines of big ships appeared suddenly, round a bend of the river, anchored in mid-stream.
In Basra there was published daily a small, excellent newspaper which gave the latest Reuters and printed selections from papers that came by the mail. It was sorely missed when we went up river. I believe it was edited by a lady. There was a club in Ashar where it was possible to sit under electric fans. In old Basra there was an Arab theatre, containing a few dancing girls and a cinematograph.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking