Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 275
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[Page 275]
135
At last the happy day arrived when we boarded one of Lynch Brothers stern-wheeler river boats for our passage up the Tigris River to Baghdad. These simple craft had belonged to a famous old English trading company that had operated in the Middle East for many years. The boats were about one hundred and fifty feet long: a dining saloon cum lounge and six to eight small passenger cabins covered most of the main deck, and above this again was the navigating bridge, in rear of which there was a large promenade deck under a canvas awning. On each side of the boat, and about half its size, an open dumb barge was secured. The function of these was to permit the stern-wheeler to bump around sharp, shoal, bends of the river without going aground. But in addition they provided living-space for the sergeants, under improvised awnings. A massive double cylinder, horizontal steam engine slowly turned a big paddle wheel, which spanned right across the square stern.
Our speed against the four or five-knot current of the mighty river was equivalent to only slow-walking pace. There were several short halts for a couple of hours, when the boat drew into the bank at a suitable spot and we all went ashore to stretch our legs in a brisk route march on the open plain. On one of these outings we were all sitting down for a short rest when a large squawking vulture alighted about forty yards away. The Major in charge ordered the dozen sergeants to load their rifles, take careful aim at the bird, and fire when he dropped his hat. The volley was fired almost as one shot, there was a cloud of dust around the vulture, from which he rose and flapped lazily away, apparently unhurt.
The Mesopotamian plain is very flat and much of it is well below the level of the river, which winds about in sweeping bends that in some places seem to nearly describe a circle: there were times when we seemed to be pushing upstream all day but not getting very far away from the minaret of a mosque in a riverside village. Well inland, we passed through low country