ABSTRACT
T URNING our backs on the hills, we set off the next morning into the desert.
Shaikh Saihud, with the courtesy of the Arab host, had insisted on accompanying us on the first stage of our journey, as far as the edge of the marsh formed by the waters of the Tyb and Duwairij rivers. There we should part, Haji Rikkan to earn his precarious livelihood by the infinitesimal profits of his bartering, I to 'Amara to pick up the boat for Baghdad, Saihud to return to his encampment at the foot of the hills.
