As if to protest against the frankly commercial atmosphere of everything and everybody at Abadan, a dhow that might have belonged to Sinbad the Sailor himself was making slow headway before the failing breeze under a huge spread of bellying canvas—­an apparition from another age, relieved boldly against the dark hull of a tank steamer.

The flood tide had spent itself and the river seemed unusually still as twilight deepened and the many lights of the works wriggled in long reflection in the water.  A spell of enchantment seemed to lie over everything, and the faint purring hum from the distant oil blast furnaces pervaded the still air.  Old Sinbad came to anchor and night set in.

This is all very peaceful and picturesque to write about now, but at the time I was in a motor boat that had left Mahommerah to take me for a run and it had broken down and seemed unlikely to start again in spite of all the coxswain’s efforts.  Consequently we were drifting about on the stream and likely to be swept down by the ebb tide.  We were unfortunately on the far side of the river from Abadan, and consequently our plight would not be observed from the works.  The situation was not a pleasant one because we stood a very good chance of being run down by some incoming steamer.

[Illustration:  “Serried ranks of tall iron funnels.”]

When it was clear that we should drift down below the region of the oil quays I thought we would see what our lungs could do.  Timing our shouts together, the coxswain and I, we sent up a tremendous hail to the lowest of the piers.  Again and again we startled the night, until at last we heard an answering hallo.

In a few minutes a motor-boat bore down upon us.  It was the British Navy in the shape of an engineer lieutenant commander.  He took us in tow, carried me off to his bungalow, arranged about the boat being berthed and looked after till the morning, and proved a most cheery soul full of good looks and given to hospitality.  When I explained my job he roared with laughter.

“Just the right time to arrive,” he said.  “Subject one, Abadan at night complete with tanks; subject two, works, oil, one in number—­sketched in triplicate—­why, my Lords Commissioners will be awfully bucked.  They’ve put a couple of millions into this show, you know.  Say ‘when,’ it can’t hurt you, special Abadan brand.”

[Illustration:  Ship loading with oil.]

I said “when.”  I kept on saying “when,” and then as a measure of self-protection suggested sketching the works while I could distinguish tanks from palm trees.  So we went out and had a preliminary look round, reserving the “Grand Tour of the Inferno,” as my host named our projected expedition, until after dinner.