I had just time to observe two naval officers and the native coxswain struggling with poles to turn the boat round, or free it from its unserviceable position with regard to the bank when the prow of my bellam took a flying leap over the motor-boat, precipitating my two boatmen into the water, and sending me by means of a somersault into the launch.  Somewhat stunned I lay gazing up at a piece of blue sky in which I could discern the green leaves of palm trees.

When in the midst of this blue dome above I beheld Brown perched on the top of a palm tree exhibiting with a look of blank astonishment on his face, waving an arm as if in a kind of bewildered greeting, I gave up the struggle for existence and became resigned to my fate.  Without doubt Brown, whom I had last heard of in France, had been killed and was now doing his best to welcome me into a happier and better world.

It would be quite like Brown to try and outdo the ordinarily accepted symbolism of bearing a palm branch by attempting to wave a whole palm tree, for this he seemed most undoubtedly to be doing, embracing its trunk and swaying from side to side.

Subsequently, when things had sorted themselves out in my mind, and when I found I was still in the land of the living I realized that he was attempting to descend to earth.  He was no less astonished than I.

After baling out the bellam and restoring order in the launch we found that the casualties were nil, and proceeded to compare notes.  Brown, it appeared, had joined the Naval Division, been to Antwerp, Gallipoli and France, and then been transferred for gunnery duties to the rivers of Mesopotamia, and was now Lieut.  R.N.V.R. in the Dalhousie stationed at Basra.  His occupation, when I came across him in this unexpected way, was that of a leader of an expedition in a motor-boat with two R.N. victims to find a new route to somewhere or other which could not possibly be approached by water.

His enthusiasm had been so infectious that he had persuaded these gallant and guileless officers to go with him, and was, at the moment of my arrival, attempting to get a better geographical idea of the surrounding country by climbing a palm tree and shouting directions to the unfortunate occupants of the boat below, who were hopelessly stuck.  The sudden impact of the bellam, uncomfortable as it was for all concerned, succeeded where they had failed, in getting them off the mud.

[Illustration:  The house of Sinbad the Sailor, Basra]

An old-world touch is given to the waters of Basra by the high-sterned dhows anchored in the river.  Above Ashar Creek the scenery of the banks with its wharves and big steamers is not particularly characteristic of the East.  Some of it might be by the Thames at Tilbury Docks.  But by Khora Creek and in the lower reaches of the river at Basra, these old-world ships, with their quaint lines and steep, naked masts, are more in keeping with our recollections of Sinbad the Sailor, or perhaps of the days of the Merchant Venturers of our own Elizabethan days.