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A busload of Arabs had to unpack all their belongings from the top of their vehicle. It must have been a tiring procedure in the heat of the afternoon.Even in the shade of the customs shed we felt hot and sticky, as we answered questions regarding the cholera infected areas and towns that we had visited. Hearing the miserable sound of crying children in another room who had just been given an injection for cholera we carefully avoided saying “yes” to any question that would lead to our arms being jabbed. Enquiries were made as to whether we had any carpets or guns, and our thoughts went to the harmless air rifle hidden behind the driving seat. It seemed to be such an unnecessary piece of equipment that we resolved to throw it away at the next opportunity.

Shortly after departure from the customs, we were stopped at a police roadside checkpoint. Our passport was again required for scrutiny, and we were asked to fill in a form indicating our destination and giving various other particulars. Within half an hour we were called to a halt again for exactly the same reason. In all, there were no less than six checkpoints during the journey to Baghdad.

When we had filled our tank at the border, we must have been sold a poor grade of petrol, because the engine started ‘pinking’ badly, and I could not get up to a reasonable speed. There was also a high wind, and, as we looked about us, everything took on a sickly yellowish colouring. Sand was being whipped across the road, and we fully expected a sandstorm. Nearing Baghdad, we drove past settlements that had grown up around great brick kilns, but nothing was clearly defined, as the heavy yellow haze still persisted.

Other travellers had told us of a good camping site to the north of the city on the east bank of the Tigris, and we soon found signs directing us to it. Several circular reed huts set amongst a grove of date palms, provided the accommodation, and we decided to use one of these, rather than erect our tent. Inside each hut were two cane beds on which we placed our ‘Lilos’. Most important of all, there was a brick building that housed the toilets, washbasins and showers and, the greatest luxury, hot water. The cost for each day was a hundred and fifty fils for each person, and a hundred fils for the car, a total of about eight shillings.

The huts, in which we were to sleep, were built in the original style of the Marsh Arabs or Madaan, who inhabit the southern area of Iraq in the region of Basra. There was one larger reed hut known as a mudhif, which, in villages, would be used as a kind of council hall and for entertaining guests. The mudhif is constructed entirely from giant reeds that grew up to twenty feet in height. These are bound together in huge bundles to make the main arches, of which there are always an odd number, usually from five to fifteen. The number is fixed according to the status of the particular tribe or family. At the flat end of the mudhif is an intricate arrangement of latticework, and two vertical reed columns form the entrance, which is always designed to face Mecca. Inside, the effect was spacious and cool, and there was a pleasant, fresh scent from the reeds. This particular mudhif had nine arches, and was about fifty feet long and twenty feet wide. The floor was not covered, but normally woven matting would be spread over the entire area where the guests would sit. Near the centre was a small, square hearth where the coffee could be heated.

During the night the almost continual barking of the guard dogs disturbed our sleep. At the slightest sound all four would start, and would soon be joined by a chorus from the rest of the dogs in the neighbourhood, with an occasional bray from a donkey. There was still quite a strong wind that kept the palm fronds rustling, and sent little scurries of sand across the stone floor. In the early hours, Audrey thought that she could hear a rattlesnake outside, but I thought she had probably been dreaming. I felt too drowsy to investigate, and could hear nothing except the distant call to prayer from a remote mosque.

This call from the minaret, which was described by Byron as being ‘more moving than all the bells in Christendom’ had for us, also (when at a distance) an almost indescribable quality and beauty. We likened it to the wistful sound produced by a bow being drawn across a violin string, or that of a tawny owl calling from a distant tree at night. It had the poignancy of a trumpet call sounding the last post. It was timeless.

Caliph Jafar Al Mansour, who intended that it should be the administrative capital for the Abbassid Empire, founded Baghdad in the eighth century. The site was chosen because of the military advantages of its position, and the existence of the two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which provided connections with distant lands. It was designed on the Roman principle of a round city, with three lines of walls and a moat, and was known as Dar-as-Salaam, the ‘City of Peace’.

The Abbassid caliphate was brought to an end in the thirteenth century by the Mongol invasion. In the fifteenth century, Tamerlane and his hordes destroyed all in their path. In Baghdad, as a result of his massacres, he built a hundred and twenty towers with the heads of his victims. During the Turkish invasion, in the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, occupied the city. This period of Ottoman rule lasted until the First World War, when the British General Maude captured Baghdad. From 1920, a British Mandate was established with Emir Feisal as King. The Mandate was terminated in 1932 and Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations. A year later Feisal died and was succeeded by his son. As he was killed in a motor accident in 1939, Feisal’s youngest son came to the throne, but his uncle, the Emir Abdul-Illah acted as Regent. The latter was hated, even by those who supported the monarchy. He and Nuri-es-Said, the Prime Minister, ran the country as a police state. A few powerful sheikhs owned the wealth, whereas millions of peasants lived in squalid conditions. On 14th of July 1958, there was the inevitable revolution led by Major General Abdul Karim Kassim, whose purpose it was to raise the standard of living for all.

Baghdad is the city associated with the tales of ‘The Arabian Nights’ or, more correctly, ‘The Thousand and One Nights’. These are two hundred and sixty-four Immortal Stories, including Sinbad the Sailor, Ali-Baba and his Forty Thieves, and Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. They are said to have been relatives of a Sultan’s wife who was under sentence of death. She contrived that her story-telling each night should end at such an exciting part, that the Sultan was repeatedly compelled by his curiosity to spare her for another day, in order to hear the end of each tale. On the last night she was given a pardon.

We obtained a map of Iraq, which included a road plan of the capital, and changed our travellers’ cheques at the airport before making our way to the centre of the city. We found ourselves at a busy road junction, where a high modern arch marked the grave of an Unknown Soldier. Behind it, in complete architectural contrast, was a colourfully tiled mosque but, being in the centre of such a bustling, motorised city, where fast American Chevrolets ruled the road, it lacked the lustre of some of the Persian mosques.

Driving along colonnaded Rashid Street, we arrived at a market area. Arabs strode along in flowing robes like striped nightgowns, sometimes with a shabby western-styled jacket over the top. Other men, wearing the untidy black and white check kaffiyeh, leaned idly against parked lorries and talked together in small groups. The whole area was a jumbled mass of humanity and stinking garbage, both of which spilled across the path and into the road. The combination of sounds and smells that pervaded our senses, made us realise that our campsite was indeed a veritable haven of peace.

On the West Bank of the Tigris is an area called Kadhimain, the place of the two Kadhim’, where most of the inhabitants are Shia Moslems. As we drove over the bridge, we saw that some Bedouin had pitched their black tents at the waters edge beneath some lofty date palms, and then as we looked ahead we saw the Kadhimain mosque, which is one of the landmarks of Baghdad. Its two golden domes and four golden minarets make a magnificent sight. The shrine here is the resting place of Musa al Kadhim and his son, the seventh and ninth Shia imams. We parked close to the entrance in a street thronged with people. It was not likely that Audrey would be allowed inside, but I thought I would try. I had hardly gone more than a few steps towards the entrance, when an enraged shout went up, “Musulman! Musulman!” Raised fists and angry faces left me in no doubt as to whether I would ever see the inside. Obviously much more strictness was observed here than we had previously encountered. I beat a hasty retreat to the Land Rover and we drove back to the camp.

A number of families had come to the site and were using it as a picnic area. I think that they regarded our vehicle as quite a spectacle, and several of them wandered slowly past hoping that they would get a better view of our accommodation. The following day we went to see the great arch of Ctesiphon, to the east of Baghdad. Ctesiphon had, at one time, been the Persian capital, having been established by the Parthians as a winter residence. The arch is all that remains of a central hall, which was used as a palace by the Sassanian kings, and is said to be the largest single span of un-reinforced brickwork in the world. It was over eighty feet wide, and a hundred and twenty feet high. Originally it was very similar in shape to the mudhif, and likewise served as an audience hall, a carpet woven to represent a garden covering the entire floor.

Only one wing of the facade of the palace remains, the other collapsed when the Tigris flooded the area in 1909. I must confess to a slight uneasiness as I stood beneath the immense vault, for gaping cracks were evident in the remaining wing and the sun-baked bricks looked somewhat powdery. We wondered how it had been possible to construct such an immense arch, for the bricks had been stepped from the walls at the side to the centre without the use of any support from beneath.

Driving towards the river Tigris, we selected a position in the shade of a few palm trees where we could look back to see Ctesiphon in its isolated setting. We had only been sitting there for a short while when some young children spotted us. Their first action was to root through the remains of our meagre lunch, and then having eaten the apple cores, and lemon peel, they offered us chewing gum that they were selling. On our return journey, we were rewarded by the sight of some unusual wading birds, as well as several brilliantly coloured kingfishers. The latter were perched on telegraph poles and were keeping a watchful eye on the canal below them.

Later that afternoon we could hear singing and a rhythmical drum beat coming from a corner of the campsite. Going over to investigate, we found a cheerful group of Iraqi girl guides, with some of their leaders. We were invited to join them, and were offered salted melon seeds to eat. Although we had been given these before, we still hadn’t acquired the knack of separating the edible part from the husk. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying them, but after half a dozen, I found myself with a mouthful of husks, that I wanted to spit out. This didn’t seem appropriate to the occasion somehow. The girls, who were all wearing khaki shirts with red neck scarves and short blue skirts, seemed pleased to have an audience. We formed a circle as one girl draped a light scarf round her waist and danced a popular folk dance to the drum and our continued clapping.

For some days Audrey had been feeling under the weather, and this was more or less literally true for both of us. In the sultry atmosphere every movement, however small, required a tremendous effort. Foolishly, we decided to clear out a cupboard in the Land Rover. We became so exhausted that it was impossible to finish the job until later. Audrey retired to bed and sweated profusely throughout the night. She awoke in the morning, quite unable to make any definite action against a couple of mice that sat on a chair a few inches away, looking her straight in the eye. Her back ached, and a rash had appeared on her ankles, back and chest. A hasty check with the limited medical literature in our possession, made us fearful that she had either smallpox or cholera. We had been vaccinated against both, but we had our doubts, and advice was definitely needed.

Fortunately, the man in charge of the campsite was able to give us an introductory letter to a friend of his, who was a doctor at the hospital across the river in Kadhimain. We took advantage of this and left directly, although the prospect of a hospital visit dampened any thoughts of sightseeing. We had heard that care and facilities available often left a lot to be desired in the Middle East, when compared with our own health service.

An eerie cry, as if from a pack of unknown animals at large, impinged upon our ears. Unable to believe what we had just heard we looked again at some Iraqi women dressed completely in black, who were sitting in little groups on the grass outside the hospital. They were rocking backwards and forward and wailing as they as they did so. The sound that issued forth was a penetrating and melancholic lament. All the grief of mourning, of death, and of intense suffering was being exorcised from within.

Glancing up at the hospital windows we noticed that, although they were covered with dirty grey mosquito netting, much of it was broken and hung limply over the brickwork. Entering the building, we found ourselves in a dark corridor where there were crowds of people. We stood for a moment, not at all sure where to go or what to do. Audrey was very worried and declared that there were too many people to wait and that she was beginning to feel a lot better. Just then a nurse, wearing a very grubby white uniform, approached us and, after looking at our letter, showed us to the person to whom we had been recommended. He, in turn, introduced us to a doctor who could speak English. Asking Audrey some questions, he made a quick examination, and then diagnosed food poisoning. This he based mainly on the fact that she had eaten fish about a week previously in Abadan. When he suggested that she should have an injection, Audrey visibly paled, but reluctantly we agreed, thinking it would be the best thing in the circumstances. A nurse was sent out of the room and shortly appeared with a small tin box, which contained the syringe.

While we were being attended to, there were one or two knockings at the door, and we realised that we must be taking up a lot of time. The doctor, discovering that we had been to Poland, was anxious to talk with us, as he had only recently returned from a trip there himself. When we finally left him, there was quite a queue of people waiting.

With great relief we climbed back into the Land Rover, thankful that Audrey had not been detained in hospital. Our worst fears had been unfounded, and we could now think about spending Christmas in Jerusalem. But we had yet to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

“Just a mound of old bricks.”

“Nothing to see at all.”

These were the replies we were given when we said that we were going to see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. In spite of these discouraging remarks, we thought that we would go and see for ourselves. So, early one morning, we set off along the Baghdad-Hills road.

Babylon reached an age of grandeur and wealth during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II, in the sixth century BC. At this time the city spread to both sides of the river Euphrates. The fortifications surrounding the city were indeed formidable, apart from the moat; there were massive double walls. The outer one was more than thirty-six feet wide, enabling two chariots of four horses to move along it side by side. This meant that rapid movement of troops, from one side of the city to the other, was always possible. In the inner wall, there were a total of eight gates, each named after a god. The north-west gate, dedicated to Ishtar, the lady of Battles and the goddess of love, was important with regard to the religious life of the city. The gate that we saw was a solid and imposing reconstruction decorated in the same style as the original. The bricks, covered with blue enamel, were embellished with red and white bulls and dragons in alternate rows.

The Ishtar gate led directly to a broad avenue called ‘Procession Street’, so named because of the New Year processions that took place there. The Babylonians called it Ai-ibur-shabu, which means ‘may the enemy not cross it’. This avenue was bordered with walls decorated in a similar way to that of the gate. Sixty lions, symbolic of Ishtar, are raised in relief from the dull brick. Originally they were displayed with colourful red and yellow manes on a wall of blue ceramic.

Beyond the gate to the right lay the site of the principal palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It was originally built round a series of five courtyards, the rooms around each courtyard comprising the garrison, the secretariat, the Staterooms, the king’s private quarters and the harem. We reflected on whether it was in this palace that Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall. Belshazzar the king, son of Nebuchadnezzar, once held a great feast. Among the merrymaking and drinking of wine, there ‘came forth fingers of a man’s hand and wrote upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.’

Belshazzar was petrified with fear, and he cried aloud for someone who could interpret the words: Mene Mene Tekel, Upharsin that the hand had written. But the wise soothsayers of Babylon could not decipher them. The Queen suggested that Daniel, a captive from Jerusalem, who had in the past given the meaning of some of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, might be able to help. Daniel was summoned forth and he gave the interpretation:

‘God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished.
Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.
Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.’

Belshazzar decreed that Daniel should be the third ruler of the kingdom, and ordered him clothes of purple and a gold chain to hang about his neck. Hardly had he uttered the words, when the Persians advanced into the city along the riverbeds, having diverted the Euphrates into numerous other channels. Belshazzar was slain.

What remains today of the Hanging Gardens? It is indeed not unlike a heap of bricks and old walls, and we had to use a lot of imagination to conjure up the scene, as it would have been. According to legend, the gardens were created by the king for the pleasure of his wife, the Median princess, Amytis, who had become homesick for her native mountains in this flat, low-lying land. They were constructed in a series of terraces, each supporting luscious vegetation, and even trees. The gardens were kept watered by irrigation machines, which pumped the water from the river Euphrates to the topmost garden, some seventy-five feet high. It then cascaded down over the terraces.

In Procession Street we met a group of excited children, who had numerous coins, and what appeared to be old clay tablets with hieroglyphic writing impressed on them. These things looked genuine enough, but we reasoned that it would be very unlikely if these children did have anything of value. They pestered us for some time, whispering confidentially “Very old, mister” and “From the tower!” until they found some other more accommodating customers.

We made our way to the site of the tower, the Etemenanki, or House of the Platforms of Heaven and Earth. Possibly it was the ‘Tower of Babel’, which is mentioned in the Bible.[10] Originally it was raised to a height of about three hundred feet. There were seven storeys, with a wide staircase leading to the second storey, and at the top there was a shrine.

All that can be seen now are mounds of soft sand, but perhaps not quite all, for scratching beneath the surface we found broken pieces of old pots and glass. Our imagination thoroughly aroused, we turned amateur archaeologists for an hour or so and painstakingly unearthed and sorted through various pieces of glazed and unglazed pots and lovely iridescent blue glass. We wondered how old each piece was and who had used them. Perhaps some of the coins and clay tablets that the children had offered us were genuine after all.

We retraced our steps, stopping at the Ishtar Gate, beside which there is a museum. It is only small, but well worth a visit, if only to see the splendid scale model of Babylon.

As we left Baghdad the following day, we passed a group of women, all balancing enormous, straggling bundles of straw upon their heads. They were dressed in black abas, which just revealed colourful ankle-length dresses beneath. As they swayed gracefully past, their bare feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground.

A narrow strip of black bitumen stretched before us into the distance, the desert road traversing the land of ancient Mesopotamia, the ‘Land of Shinar’, so often mentioned in the Bible, the cradle of European civilisation. The two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, that border the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, meet near Al-Qurnah before flowing into the sea. Al-Qurnah is where the fruitful Garden of Eden is said to have been situated, and it was on the banks of these rivers that man first invented the process of writing.

Over the whole distance of nearly two hundred miles, between Ar-Ramadi and Ar-Rutbah, we hardly saw any people other than at the occasional lorry pull-ups. Sometimes we stopped to inspect unusual plants growing close to the sand. One kind had a fruit looking somewhat like a green apple. A coarse, prickly shrub, growing in tufts, it is known as camel grass, though it did not look to be an adequate diet for such a large animal.

Our arrival in Ar-Rutbah coincided with the petrol gauge, reading empty, so we filled up with fifteen gallons of the cheapest petrol to date, at the equivalent of two shillings and five pence a gallon, before looking for accommodation. We were hoping to camp by the custom’s house, but the ground was hard and stony. It was also rather cold and, as Audrey was still suffering with a bad backache, we booked in at the nearby rest house.

When we rose in the morning the sun was shining, but the air was icy cold. Even at nine o’clock, the temperature inside the Land Rover was only 28oF. At the customs control shed, the officer in charge was still in bed. Yawning, and bleary-eyed, he dragged himself to his desk and stamped our passports.

For our part, we felt a great deal better for a good night’s sleep, and we set off once again over more uninhabited desert. Rusty petrol cans littered the roadside in places, no doubt left over from the war. From the Iraq Petroleum Company’s pumping station, H 3, we followed the old Kirkuk to Haifa pipeline, across desolate no-man’s land to the actual Iraq-Jordan frontier. There was nothing but a shed, and a couple of barriers supported on oil drums.