Page 105 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
that now began to get dirty with oil and grease above the waterline
from the wash of passing ships.
Rashad asked our balam to give full engine, even though it might
be hard on our reeds. We had to get out into the open bay. To our
surprise we found the water cleaner as soon as we had passed the big
city, as if the mess was floating in and out at the same spot. But
surely it was bound to catch up with us again if we did not reach the
mouth of the river before the tide flowed back towards the sea. The
water turned from black to brown. There were a very few date
palms again in a naked landscape without beauty. It was indeed an
area fit for industrial expansion. In the afternoon a town rose above
the level wasteland on the Iraqi side. Fao. The last town at the river’s
mouth. In a sense the river continued; at low tide it wound its way
like a shiny sea serpent through partly submerged bogs and empty
tidal flats, until it sank where there was no more sign of land. We
were longing to get there; out where brackish water would turn salt
and seagulls waited to escort us into the freedom of the open sea.

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