Page 25 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
The water in the marshes is too deep for wheeled traffic and too
shallow for normal boats. With its boggy bottom it has always kept
horsemen and camel riders away. A pedestrian would be totally lost
if wading among the tall reeds. Only the Madans knew the hidden
labyrinths of narrow and shallow canoe passages through their
bulrush jungle, and for this reason have been left to lead their own
lives. But the enthusiasm of the British explorers Wilfrid Thesiger,
Gavin Young, and the few others including myself who had been
inside the marshes and emerged full of admiration, had begun to
affect the attitudes of Baghdad. This time I was even encouraged to
use a film camera and to bring as many Madans as I needed out of
the marshes to my ship-building site near the resthouse.
Only a few columns of smoke far apart revealed to us that people
were living in the marshes. We did not sec a single trace of human
waste. Not a roof disclosed the whereabouts of the villages until we
came within a spear’s throw of a building. No elevation, not a stone
to step on is found to permit a view above the canes and bulrushes
that stand compact and much taller than a man’s eyes on boggy
ground that yields to the foot like a mattress. Geese and ducks and
other waterfowl of all colours and sizes abound, as if guns had not
been invented. An occasional eagle sails in from the surrounding
shores, and kingfishers, and an endless variety of little birds, some
of brilliant colour, sit and sway everywhere in the reeds, especially
in the migratory season. Tall white herons and red-beaked storks
stand like sentinels between the stalks, and stout pelicans scoop up
fish with their big bucket-like beaks.
With luck one may catch a glimpse of a shaggy black boar as it
ploughs its way in heavy bounces between swinging reeds. Only
when approaching the hidden habitations do we see huge water
buffalo wading lazily in our way or climbing up into the reeds, their
broad black bodies shining like wet sealskin in the sun. They stop to
watch us with their friendly bovine eyes as we pass, flapping their
broad ears and flicking their slim tails patiently to shake off flies as
they imperturbably continue to chew the last of the green sedge that
hangs down from their jaws.
Suddenly the village is before us. What a revelation! What perfect
harmony with nature! The vaulted reed houses are as much at one
with the environment as are the birds’ nests that hang among the
canes. Some are small and scarcely more than shelters to creep
under, but most are big and roomy. They are hidden simply
because we ourselves travel behind high and unbroken screens of
greenery. The tallest houses are big enough almost to resemble

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