Tbe Life of tie River
and a sort of growl at the end of each beat, could be heard
above the noise of the engines as this strange combination
of the ages of Faith and Mechanics came round the eastern
bend.
In winter mornings a low white mist hung over the
river.
I used to be rowed across, and watched the domes and
minarets gather, as it were, out of a dream.
" so faintly flushed, so phantom fair,"
their bases lost in vapour, their outline clear against a
very pale sky, as my " bellum " lapped across the shrouded
water towards the unseen shore.
Old Salih the boatman, dressed in a dingy shirt, a black
and white kaffiyali of die Shi'as wrapped round his cunning,
watery-eyed old face, looked up at me with a pious
aphorism now and then as he rowed with humped shoulders.
He usually had a trail offish for market threaded on a cord
and kicking out by the boat's side—a painful sight which
made one think of that Persian King who kept his prisoners
together by a rope run through their armpits. Kindness
to fish did not enter into Salih's catalogue of merits, but
he was great on fasting, which is a lucky virtue to be fond
of if one is very poor. In Ramadhan he would meditate
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