Page 43 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition

ship by tearing down the big reed-house we sat in. Actually, if
turned upside down, this hall could become the hull of a roomy ship
ready made with solid reed ribs; Hagi would only have to cover it
with pitch or asphalt, inside and out, the moment both ends were
closed.
Nobody planned to tear down Hagi’s reed-house. I was delighted
to find it there, as good as ever, when I came back after an interval of
five years, although I missed the old reincarnation of Abraham. But
his sons were there and gave me a royal reception. The Biblical
setting was still there, the descendants of Terah, Abraham’s father,
kept up most of the old traditions.
Sha-lan, Hagi’s oldest son, and all the men in his house, got
excited when I told them I had come back to find people in the
marshes who could help me harvest berdi and build a bundle-boat
like the ones old Hagi had described to us five years earlier. I needed
twenty men. Sha-lan immediately assured me that he would choose
them himself. No problem. After a short discussion among those
present, Gatae was thought to be the best man to lead the work.
Gatae was a master reed-house builder and therefore would know
how to make perfectly tapering bundles.
Gatae was fetched in a mashhuf and proved to be a fine elderly
marshman with a humorous twinkle in his eyes. Tall and slim, he
stood in the canoe as straight as a mast, his checkered caftan
fluttering. With his dignity and his trim white beard, he reminded
me of my late English publisher, Sir Stanley Unwin. We met as
if we had been friends for a lifetime. Gatae was not in the
least surprised that I wanted to build a reed-ship and sail away
into the sea. He went straight to the point: How much reed did
we need?
I paced the floor of the hall. Ra I had been 50 feet long, Ra II only
39. This time I wanted a larger crew and thus a ship 60 feet long, just
about the length of the one-room reed-house we were in. But I had
learnt from Hagi that the spongy reeds had to be compressed, so I
needed more reeds than the final volume of the ship.
:
‘We had better cut twice as much berdi as what would be needed
to fill this house from floor to ceiling,’ I estimated, and we all looked
to the vault high above our heads. Gatae was not impressed. He
would make the bundles any size I wanted.
We agreed that twenty men under Gatae’s leadership should
come to Adam’s tree and begin the building in September, but I
should first return in August and see that the reeds were cut and
properly dried by other Madans in the village of A1 Gassar, closer to
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