EAST OF SUEZ.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17752, 2 July 1929, Page 11

EAST OF SUEZ.

BAZAARS IN BAGDAD. A VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS. Every city and sizable town east of Suez has its bazaar. Alas, that in many cities of the East, the old ones are gradually superseded.. Bagdad, however, is different. Life in this ' city of a quarter of a million still centres round the market place (writes G.A. in the Christian Science Monitor). On New Street, the great and practically only traffic vein, you can book a seat in a car to Teheran, Damascus or Jerusalem, buy passage in an aeroplane that will take you to Cairo or Moscow, and reserve a berth on a ship to transport you from Basrah to Bombay. English signs advertise the bookshop where you can get the latest translation of Keysering only ten days after its publication in London; stores are here, too, which specialise in sporting outfits for tennis and polo. You may have your hair cut in an establish- , ment named in honour of a British High Commissioner, and you are informed in English that you may dine a la London in a hotel which bears the name of a late British general whose name is also perpetuated in the great Maude bridge across the Tigris. But all this is on the fringe of Bagdad —on the street which leads to and from the bazaars. It is a wide and straight street ; with room for spacious showrooms to display the latest anti ’ biggest models of American cars, and contrasts strongly with the business premises in the bazaars where a baby carriage would force the proprietor on to the pavement. To know that you are in Bagdad you must leave this asphalted street for one of the two bazaar districts. Vaulted roofs which let in, seemingly at one time, all of Bagdad’s annual rainfall of six inches —so rapidly does the alluvial soil of the unpaved lanes of commerce turn into pools of glutinous mud—rows upon rows of vaults raised a few feet from the ground and resembling caves cut in rock, here is where business is continuous if not brisk. Goods overflow into the middle of the alley, and you would think the storekeeper did not know his own from his neighbour’s. Merchants can hear without wanting to listen to their competitors clinching or failing to clinch a bargain with a customer who might easily have been .his. A ll unwritten law guarantees against interference where intrusiveness is unavoidable.

Vendors of All Goods. Through the swarm, ankle deep in mud, a porter is heard appealing in the name of Allah to passers-by for the right of way. “U friend of my uncle,” lie intones, “watch your head.” And well may you heed his appeal, for he is crouching under a heavy burden, a case filled probably with piece goods. The rope holding the case in place is wound around his head and held between his teetli like a bit. He cannot see in front of him, for his eyes are on the ground, and he is scarcely visible under his load. Balancing on his head, it seems precariously, a huge metal tray which you discover is a portable restaurant, a porter with steaming-dishes of cooked vegetables tries to make his way through a crowd. His progress is arrested by ’ a good-natured throng crowded around auctioneers mounted on boxes planted in the middle of the lane. Everything from cheese cloth to astrachan is offered to the highest bidder by three auctioneers outshouting one another. In danger of being trampled is a black-draped figure of a woman, holding in her lap the reserve stock of clothes which her man on the box may call for. “Here is cashmere. How much for the cashmere cape? But you have no money for cashmere. Here, then, is cotton; and how much, my brothers, for the silk dress?” One of the auctioneers is dressed to illustrate the effect achieved when everything offered is bought because it is too reasonable to pass by. A tiny skull-cap of astrachan on the back of the head, he wears a woman’s maroon coat complete with collar. Out of one eye he regards the crowd as it ebbs and flows, a standing example of the 'well-dressed man. Apparently the auction has been going too long. Moreover, it is unauthorised. Traffic has become congested. A policeman braves the displeasure of the crowd and invites the auctioneers to step down. The auctioneers have brought the crowd to the desired mood. The crowd has been shown the purchasing power of the “anna.” They decide it is best to shout their wares louder so that the voice of the law will not be heard. But If the truth he told, the officer of the law is only human. He is as interested as any of the crowd in the cahsmere and the cotton and silk. Presently he begins to handle these articles, and you leave him there. Two Standards. ; You leave the bazaars, sighing for the magnifleant Persian chests, admiring the rugs, casting a long parting glance at the samovars —all the time reflecting on the difference of standard between this bazaar and New Street, the bazaar where articles are reckoned by the anna and New Street, where the lowest denomination known seems to be the rupee. The two standards do not meet. Those who buy in rupees are not of Irak. They have come to Bagdad to help the Irakis govern, themselves, to drill and pipe the oil from Irak fields, to span the desert with cars and fill the languid air with the drone of aeroplanes. But they live severely apart, dining in hotels which are “open to officers,” but not “other ranks," dancing twice a week to the latest jazz. They are the “sahibs,” and the Irakis their “bearers,” two concepts of master and servant Introduced from India. The European hotels that cater to them pride themselves on their ability to include sucking-pig as part of the variegated menu. .The merchants o. Bagdad, five or six at a time, nibble from little dishes containing steamed vegetables when the portable restaurant descends- from the porter’s head and comes to rest on the ground. I Antiquities.

The guide book that tells you “Bagdad is an emporium for Arabic and Persian products, on the one side, and for European manufactures on the other,” informs you a little further on that its bazaars “are no better stocked than those of Aleppo.” To imagine what the city was like in remote antiquity, in the days when it was a •Babylonian settlement, and before, one must visit the museum. Beads of onyx, amethyst, cornelian, and agate unearthed in Ur show that at one time the bazaars oLßagdad, before Aleppo was known of, were stocked with beautifully wrought things defying the craftsmanship of successive genoraiions down 1 to ovir day. The cylinder seals of alabaster, lapis, shell, bone, ;

ivory, and rock crystal, disclose a delicacy of conception and workmanship which it is hard to believe has been equalled anywhere. Coloured glass bottles which have come down from Nebuchadnezzar’s time, spindles of lapis on copper hods, spinning tops and dice, all point to the arts, the tastes, and the "vices” of the ancient Babylonians. The museum abounds in works of art, such as "goddess Beau,” a bobbed-hair image, and the perfect sculpture of the King of Logash, which has come down from 200 B.C. Times and invasions have done their worst by this ancient land. Of the fine arts no votaries are to be found. Though Bagdad and its bazaars have a ■ charm all their own a visit to the museum makes one sigh less for the Persian rugs and chests and wish more for a return of the Sumerians and their work.