After what to me seemed miles, and which as a matter of fact must have been about five hundred yards, we emerged from the lake region and were able to find a track along the ground.  It skirted a railway line and led toward some buildings and machinery.  A dull glow began to illuminate the scene and show up our path.

[Illustration:  “Crude steam engines evolved by Titans when the world was young.”]

A building loomed up against the sky.  It was dimly lit by firelight and suggested to me a glimpse of the Tower of London with the corner turrets knocked off.  In front of this were some vast boilers with uncouth chimneys stretching out of sight into the dark sky.  The whole thing, weird and eerie, was reflected in pools of water, through which black figures toiled and splashed, pushing some loaded trollies.  Then we came out into a lighted area at the foot of a mysterious-looking furnace tower, where strangely clad men, not unlike tattered and disreputable monks, were hauling at a great black object, some boiler or piece of machinery.

The workmen on closer view showed that they were dressed in sacking or some such rough material in a sort of tunic.  They wore long curly hair and curious hats that looked like Assyrian helmets.

“What race are these men?” I asked the Chief.

“They are the Medes and Persians,” he replied.

“And what is that tower?”

“Oh, that—­,” he paused for a few seconds, “that’s Nebuchadnezzar’s Fiery Furnace heated seven times hotter.”

He was evidently determined to do me well from the point of view of local colour and picturesque Biblical association.  I think, however, he missed a chance when later on we saw mysterious writing in Arabic characters upon the wall of an engine house.  He should at least have read it out as Mene, Mene, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

[Illustration:  H.M.S. MANTIS, one of the monitors on the Tigris]

Abadan is on an island and the pipe line crosses the water from the mainland.  We could see it stretching away across the flat land into the darkness where the sky-line of the palm belt by the waterside was just visible.  It is strange to reflect that all this scene of careless activity is dependent on those two pipes, each about 14 inches in diameter, connecting it with a point 150 miles away.

I came again in the morning to look at the works.  They did not appear half so mysterious as when seen in the dark.  The Tower of London had shrunk into quite a small buttressed building of brick and Nebuchadnezzar’s Fiery Furnace dwindled considerably in size.  The Medes and Persians, on the other hand, looked wilder and more “operatic” than at night.  I think as a matter of fact they were Kurds.

It is a very simple style of get-up to imitate.  For purposes of private theatricals I will tell you how to do it, in case you should find the stage direction, “Alarums and excursions.  Enter the Medes and Persians.”