Return to the Marshes

by Gavin Young

  Colonel Chesney’s paddle-steamer Euphrates, belching smoke from its towering funnel, covered the seventy-five miles from Qurna to Suq-esh-Shiukh in seven and a half hours steaming against the tide. At Suq he remarked on more than ‘some 1500 clay-built houses and as many tents: pleasantly shaded by vines, fig and pomegranet trees, interspersed with rose-bushes’. J. Baillie Fraser, in 1834, saw ‘a walled town of considerable size. Devastated by the plague which lately depopulated Baghdad and which did not spare the Montefic….’ He wandered through the Bazaar (‘rather extensive’) and found shops filled with ‘articles suitable for Arabs alone; spears, daggers, swords and shields, saddles, abbas (cloaks). There were plenty of grocers and druggists: loaves of white sugar, coffee and coarse spices were abundant, as well as the common articles of brown sugar from India, dates, soap, etc., etc.’ Fraser, who was not enjoying his trip at all, added grumpily – ‘But I looked in vain for a china cup to replace our broken teacups.’ Despite the lack of crockery, Fraser was amazed by the volume of trade passing up the Euphrates from Suq-esh-Shiukh – ‘In spite of all dangers and imposts. Much of it goes all the way to Damascus.’ Travellers also noted Arabs skimming about like mayflies in small fragile canoes made of reeds coated with bitumen. Called zaimas, these tiny boats were the cheap mashhufs of that time.

  Fraser soon grasped a basic element of Iraq’s history from earliest times to the present: ‘The whole bank of the Euphrates, often on both sides from Semava (Samawa) to Bussora (Basra),’ he recorded, ‘exhibits evidences of former dense population and cultivation…. What a country it would be under a wise and steady government!’ In 1830, yet one more great flood had swept away most of the dykes and swamped the low land down to Basra. Fraser heard that Sheikh Isad of the Muntafiq was near Qurna with some of his men doing their best to repair one of the major dykes. But chronic damage had been done long before 1831. Local tribes alone could hardly restore a whole irrigation system. Expert organization from Baghdad was needed and, alas, the government of the Turks was neither wise nor steady.

  What did the Arabs of the area look like? Captain the Hon. George Keppel, passing up the Tigris in 1824, found himself among people who resembled the ancient heroes of Greece and Rome. ‘The Arab boatmen were as hardy and muscular-looking fellows as ever I saw. One loose brown shirt, of the coarseness of sack-cloth, was the only covering of the latter. This, when labour required it, was thrown aside, and discovered forms most admirably adapted to their laborious avocations; indeed, any of the boatmen would have made an excellent model for an Hercules; and one in particular, with uncombed hair and shaggy beard, struck us all with the resemblance he bore to statues of that deity.’ Later, even J. Baillie Fraser, his stomach still churning since Sheikh Isad’s thoughtless offer of a sheep’s eyeball at a tribal feast, admitted that it was remarkable, ‘that a people living among bogs and fens, should be the stoutest, fairest, and comeliest of all the Arabs’. In Keppel’s day, they were mainly armed with long spears or massive clubs. They wore turbans or headcloths, and in the Samawa area these were predominantly red and yellow with long plaited fringes. In the Lamlum district, and probably elsewhere, tribesmen greased their hair and wore it ‘in several long tails’.

  The Marsh women were amazingly handsome, too. Keppel throws in some descriptive detail. The women, like the men, wore loose shirts (he says), and nose-rings and necklaces of silver coins. Some dressed their hair in long plaits studded with coins. ‘They were all more or less tattooed on the face, hands, and feet and some were marked on the ankles with punctures resembling the clock of a stocking.’ He goes on: ‘several women, accompanied by a host of children, brought milk, butter and eggs for sale, and followed the boat for some time…. They came to our boat with the frankness of innocence and there was a freedom in their manners, bordering perhaps on the masculine; nevertheless their fine features and well-turned limbs produced a tout ensemble of beauty, not to be surpassed perhaps in the brilliant assemblies of civilized life.’ Fraser, irritated by the episode of the sheep’s eyeball, was still sufficiently impressed to concede that the Marsh women were ‘light coloured and beautiful’. It was a general view. As he approached the Shatt al Arab from Hawaiza in 1840, Henry Austen Layard (later Sir Henry Layard and the future excavator of Nineveh and Nimrud), struggling with the infernal heat and flushing lions from the bushes, came at last to reed huts belonging to families of Hawaiza buffalo keepers who were unable to provide corn or grass for his horses. He saw a large Marsh village with herds of buffalo, camels and sheep and a mudhif (guest house) where the hospitable Sheikh provided him with a breakfast of fish, curds and buffalo cream. ‘Remarkable specimens of Arab beauty’, he thought the unveiled Madan women; and he, too, noted it.

  Layard had already committed to paper the fact that the best way of proceeding to Baghdad through the volatile tribal area was up the Tigris in one of the East India Company’s two small, armed steamers Assyria and Nitocris. The only other way, he confirmed, was via the postal service route along the ‘dangerous edge of the Marsh tribes and Bedowins up to Samawa’ – i.e. north from Zubair. He himself tried both ways. Once, with Lieutenant Selby of the Indian Navy who commanded Assyria on the Tigris ‘run’, he stopped the night at the camp of the great Sheikh Madhkur, paramount chief of the Beni Lam, who went aboard and inspected the steamer’s machinery. The Wali of Hawaiza had warned Layard that the Beni Lam were ‘of ill repute, treacherous and cruel’ and certainly the area was uneasy: the Beni Lam tribes seemed to be at war almost continuously, often against the Pasha of Baghdad, or in squabbles among themselves. But though Layard had some difficulties with Sheikh Madhkur, it was by marauding scallywags of the Bedouin Shammar tribe near Baghdad that he was later almost completely stripped and robbed, not by Arabs of the Marsh region.

  Of course, as always, some people provoked trouble through their own stupidity. Troubles were not inevitable. John Jackson, for example, had none on his wanderings in 1797; he seems to have been a cheery person. Forty years later, however, Colonel Chesney was taken aback by a sudden surge of animosity from the people of Suq-esh-Shiukh against his steam paddle-ships Euphrates and the Indian mail Hugh Lindsay. The women of the tribes, to his intense anxiety, began to pelt the ships with sticks and mud-balls. It became dangerous to go ashore. Dismayed, the Colonel called for an urgent investigation. The danger, he soon discovered, had been due to ‘the injudicious distribution’ of some religious tracts brought by a German missionary called Mr Samuel. ‘Some of these papers had fallen into the hands of the Sheikh of the Montefik, and he, as well as the people at large, became much incensed at the attempt thus made to convert them to Christianity.’ The Colonel, fortunately, was able to satisfy the Sheikh that he too had uncontrollable elements to deal with, and that his expedition had no missionary role whatever. At Lamlum, higher up the Euphrates, there was another, potentially more serious, misunderstanding. Colonel Chesney had just scribbled down that the dwellings of the ‘numerous population were prettily constructed reed-houses which are portable’. He had also had time to record, uneasily, a sudden appearance of mosquitos of ‘unusual size’. Then in the twinkling of an eye and quite unaccountably the local Beni Hacheim tribesmen turned nasty. Groups of them, armed, seemed to be on the warpath. Worse still – ‘Mr Ainsworth was on shore at this time, collecting botanical specimens in the adjoining wood, when we perceived that the Arabs were preparing to seize him.’ The prompt firing of a Congreve rocket from the boat restored the situation. Once more the Colonel investigated. And once more, when explanations came, the British Expedition turned out to be at fault. Someone, apparently without asking the Colonel’s permission, had hacked down part of a wood belonging to the Beni Hacheim. It had been touch and go; and Mr Ainsworth and his specimens had had a close shave. Even so, things could have been worse, and the dutiful Colonel (later General) Chesney put it down in black and white that these were the only instances of hostility in a long-drawn-out expedition.

  Of course, Europeans, though their scarlet,
lumpy faces, solar topees and button-boots must surely have appeared odd to the Arabs, were no less strange to Marsh tribesmen than the tribesmen were to Europeans. From their shadowy reed doorways, the Madan had peered, seeing but unseen, at Frenjis (Franks, to Europeans) passing by in boats; they had tried to get a closer look at della Valle, but he moved off when he spotted them; they had gawked at Europeans within touching distance in bazaars. Marsh Arabs occasionally visited Basra, Zubair, and Qurna, for shopping or gossip, as well as nearer towns like Suq-esh-Shiukh, Mansuriya, Samawa and Kut al Muammir. (In 1694, after all, the mighty confederation of Muntafiq tribes under Mani bin Mughamis actually occupied the port of Basra.) But Europeans in the streets of Basra would hardly have known that these sturdy, darkish-skinned figures in long dingy cloaks gliding by were Marsh Arabs, even if they had noticed them. So, close inspection of the Madan in their native surroundings must have amazed most travellers and frightened others.

  Up to modern times even Iraqi townsmen did not know quite what to make of them. Keppel was advised by the Captain of his Arab guards not to risk a visit to a Marsh Arab village, but he bravely did so and survived. He reported – ‘The village was a collection of about fifty mat huts from thirty to sixty feet long. The frame of the huts somewhat resembled the ribs of a ship inverted.’ Fraser said the east bank of the Euphrates was covered for miles and miles with ‘small houses made of split reeds … which gave the appearance of little gothic-built churches’.

  Layard gives a fine pen-picture of a mudhif and pays a handsome tribute to its builders. About forty foot long, twenty foot broad and fourteen foot high, it was not by any means the biggest mudhif to be seen in the Marshes – there have been some a hundred foot long. But Layard was impressed. Its entrances, he saw, were formed by clusters of long canes fixed in the ground, and united at the top so as to form pointed arches. ‘These fluted columns, as it were, were about six feet apart, and between them, serving as a sort of screen, were trellises made of reeds, joined by a twisted worsted or bright colours worked into fanciful designs. Suspended mats, beautifully made and of the finest texture, could be raised or lowered at pleasure so as to admit the air or to exclude the sun. At the side of each column was placed the trunk of a tree shaped into a kind of pedestal, upon which stood a jar of porous clay, such as are used in Arabia for cooling water. These jars, of very elegant form, were constantly replenished from the river, and nothing could be more refreshing than a draught from them. The floor was covered with fine carpets and matting…. In order to cool the temperature of the air within the mudhif black slaves were constantly throwing water over the mats which were hung up around it and formed the walls…. The remarkable elegance of its construction did infinite credit to the taste and skill of its Arab builders, who were true architects in the best sense of the word.’ (My italics)

  Venturing further among the Madan, Fraser found ‘some squalor’. Nevertheless, he squatted down among the Marsh Arab families and astonished them by lighting a ‘Promethean match’ (the fore-runner of the lucifer or phosphorus match) by a stroke of his knife or his pistol butt. They were delighted when he produced a sketch-book and pencil (he was impressed by their fine features) and began to draw them. They could never have seen sketching materials before – ‘But they comprehended with surprising quickness somewhat of their use; and when they did so, it was truly amusing to see them first come forward to have their portraits taken and then, like a coquettish child, hiding their faces and running away, or pushing others of their friends into what I suppose they thought a scrape’. The familiar charm of the Marsh people and their love of a game comes vividly through in that short passage written a 150 years ago.

  Exact observations illuminate those travellers’ notebooks like sodium flares in a cave. Keppel describes how a Marsh Arab tackled a meal – ‘After crossing his legs and adjusting his robes with true Arab gravity, he proceeded to business by baring his arm to the elbow; he then grasped a handful of rice, and moulded it into a shape, and I had almost said, the consistence, of a tennis ball. Large as it was, the palatable bolus found its way down his throat, with the aid of a huge lump of butter, with which it was accompanied.’ The description holds good today. And so does John Jackson’s account from 1797 of Marsh Arab women making bread: ‘They have a small place built with clay, between two and three feet high, having a hole at the bottom for the convenience of drawing out the ashes, something similar to a lime kiln. The oven (which I think is the proper name for this place) is usually about 15 inches wide at the top, and gradually grows wider at the bottom. It is heated with wood, and when sufficiently hot, and perfectly clear from smoke, having nothing but clear embers at bottom (which continue to reflect great heat), they prepare the dough in a large bowl, and mould the cakes to the desired size on a board or stone placed near the oven. After they have kneaded the cake to a proper consistence, they pat it a little, then toss it about with great dexterity in one hand, till it is as thin as they choose to make it. They then wet one side of it with water, at the same time wetting the hand and arm with which they put it in the oven. The wet side of the cake adheres fast to the side of the oven till it is sufficiently baked, when, if not paid proper attention to, it would fall down among the embers. If they were not exceedingly quick at this work, the heat of the oven would burn the skin from off their hands and arms; but with such amazing dexterity do they perform it, that one woman will continue keeping three or four cakes at a time in the oven till she has done baking. This mode, let me add, does not require half the fuel that is made use of in Europe.’ Jackson’s only omission is a further description of how delicious such bread is to eat. But he is such a cheerful traveller that he makes up for that in an unexpected way: he gives a rare and rousing salute to, of all things, the water. ‘I cannot quit the Euphrates,’ he says, ‘without taking notice of its salubrious water, which is by much the most pleasant that I ever tasted. Though muddy when it is first taken up, it soon becomes perfectly clear; and while I could get this water, I had not the least desire for either wine or spirits.’ I agree with Mr Jackson. The Marsh Arabs drink it all the time. You see them in their mashhufs stretching their hands into the water, inclining their heads downward a fraction, and effortlessly tossing fistfuls of water into their open mouths. But the Euphrates and Tigris water – leave alone the waters of the Marshes – are maligned by Europeans and even by town-bred Iraqis. ‘Wouldn’t drink that without boiling it a few times, old man,’ Basra Britons used to rumble. I have drunk gallons of it over the years, without noticeable ill effect.

  Fraser decided to explore the less frequented Gharraf branch of the Tigris. He ignores in his writings the properties of the water although he, like other sensible travellers in such a hot and humid region, foreswore strong liquor while he was in Iraq. On the other hand, he does enthusiastic justice to the local tea and coffee; it was obviously exactly as it is today: ‘Ginger tea was handed round by a black imp of a slave; thickish, syrupy and sometimes flavoured with a little cardomon or cloves.’ He was offered the tea in the house of an old sheikh of the Muntafiq. Later he took to Arab coffee – ‘as deep in hue as the slave who served it, strong as brandy and as bitter as gall, but fine, warm, refreshing stuff.’ During this hospitality, the sheikh plied Fraser with a few basic questions about the outside world: How many kings in Fereng (the land of the Franks)? – Which of them was the most powerful? – Which were stronger, the Russians or the English? And shortly afterwards, the canny old sheikh did his best to palm off a present of a pair of rickety horses on Fraser (a present of some sort was required by the laws of hospitality); Fraser was furious. ‘Those nags are not worth ten shillings’, he huffed indignantly, and he tried in vain to give them back.

  ‘Mean and ungracious’, was Fraser’s final description of that particular sheikh. On the other hand, Lieutenant William Heude wrote that ‘the pen cannot describe the unassuming courtesy, the open, generous hospitality of these lawless robbers of the desert.’ (Despite the ‘lawless robbers’, he cl
early intended that as an unqualified compliment.) One day, near the Gharraf, a member of his group – a slovenly and loudmouthed Turkish ‘interpreter’ – managed to achieve the unthinkable: in a mindless burst of Ottoman arrogance, he succeeded in insulting and enraging a gathering of Arab tribesmen in the guest-house of his host, a young Muntafiq sheikh, to a point very close to violence. Heude, the ‘infidel’, was suddenly in peril. But he and his company were saved by the sheikh, who, though young, knew what tribal honour required. He strode into the melée and quelled the uproar, shouting, ‘Friend or foe, believer or infidel, you all enjoy the protection of our tents!’

  The densest depths of the Marsh, of course, sheltered large numbers of poor Madan huddling in squalid reed hovels, shaggy, cunning and wild, without government or sheikhs to enforce the traditional discipline. Yet in the great sweep of water and land from Samawa to Hawaiza, where in those days the sheikhs enforced their jurisdiction, Heude, Layard and many other travellers saw that codes of conduct towards visitors were usually in accord with the immemorial tribal lore of the Arabian desert.

  5 The Coming of The British

  First came the sound of the guns; and such guns. The Marsh Arabs had heard cannons before, but the thunder of these monsters rolling up from the direction of Basra was something quite new – and getting closer. It was 1915, the British were coming, and the end of 400 years of Turkish rule in Iraq was near. The signs of approaching war had been accumulating. For months the Madan – who have an efficient ‘reed telegraph’ system – had known something was up. For one thing, the Tukish authorities had become unusually generous; chiswas, or presents of clothes, had been handed out to the sheikhs, and monies long owed had suddenly and most unexpectedly been paid. Barge-loads of Turkish soldiers and war-dancing tribesmen passed purposefully southwards on the Tigris, tossing Marsh Arab mashhufs about in their wash. Then from Istanbul the Sultan’s proclamation came: jehad – a Muslim holy war against the infidel British. The Turks, as Sunni Muslims, hoped to rally the Arab Muslims of Iraq. Presently a British and Indian force under General Barrett landed at Basra.