The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-12-27

w A@A SAA oll W ~ VA i.
| pouch of mail and has but few tardy
arrivals checked against his record in
the Imperial Ottoman camel post ser
vice.
Bagdad amuses itself now as in the
halcyon days of the careless old Ca
| liphhs. The coffee houses, much like
our "rathskellars,' serve as common
lettering places for the idle rich and
the happily idle. Here they play
games, drink countless small
blacks" pull lazily at their water
pipes and let the wide world wag
There are theatres, too, noisy and
gaudily painted places where women
of the same description sing and
dance. But such are scarcely proper
places for women and children, the
reporters on local Arabic papers
freely frequent them, armed with
that bane of managers the world
| around, the press pass" OF athletic
sports there are none, save horseback
riding, at which most of the Bag
dadites' are adapted. Some of the
finest horseflesh | have ever seen,
the famous shows of New York and
Chicago not excepted, is visible on a
Turkish holiday in the narrow
crowded streets of Bagdai ThOus-
ands of horses are exported to India
every year, many for polo purposes
and for Indian army officers, but
none of the real Arab horses of his
tGric mould ever escape-they are
too highly priced at home
Dirty as is the town itself. a
strange paradox of circumstances also
makes 1t literally the home of the
Turkish bath. Scores of these human
laundries flourish. many of the ma
tlves taking the baths as a tonic for
too much hilarity between shutdown
49," ''AdP' Dut DdSudu tdl HOl
really be called an all-night town,
though no eagle-eyed police commits
sioner has ever put on the lid Maybe
because the streets at night are not
particularly safe, or perhaps as a
survival of the ancient customs when
men who prowIed at night were
looked on as bad citizens, most Bag.
dad folk are asleep by 10 p. m. And.
odd as it seems. they climb UP on
the roof to sleep. 1t gets awfully
hot in Bagdad-it was 1873 in the
shade for % days last summer. SO
the roof affords a better chance for
such cool breaths as NAV chance to
STIR. Even then the hot. blighting
simeon is often SO frightful that suf-
ferlng men and women pour water
on their bedding to make endurable
the scortching, blistering mattress.
Every dwelling house has its Ser
dab "a sort of darkened cellar be-
low ground, seven or eight feet lower
than the surface of the street, where
in the inmates of the house seek shell
ter from the soul-destroying heat of
\ thermometer hung on the !
sunny side Of the British consulate
one day last sumner registered 10 de-
grees Fahrenheit. Drinking water is
cooled on such days by pouring it
into and allowing it to stand in a
porous, earthen vessel. with small
)ug-llke mouth. In a few minutes.
sweating" process, this
water is delightfully."- cool.
Some fifty fried-looking foreigners
fully One-third of whom are con-
5uIs tactual or honorary for some
country or other which now has or |
would like to have commercial inter /
ests in Bagjad Live here; no, they .
40 not live, they merely keep alive. /
probably nowhere on earth. where
white men attempt to keep a footing.
are living conditions more unattrac-
i've then Bagdad The winter elm
ate is good. but from November till
April the narrow, filthy streets of
8agdad are a sea of mud, as impass
lble as an Irish bog And even were
t possible to get out, there is no
,lace to go. Outside the city walls.
Beyond the old moat, the desert be-
,ins, stretching away for hundreds
# miles in every direction. One or
WO clubs of slim membership. en-
conced in houses formerly occupied
y Turkish families. battle noble for
Xistence. These are indeed the only
ecourse Of the man who can't ge.
ack. London papers, six weeks OLD,
British Billiard tables as large as a
'hlcago lawn, and unfailing flows Of
Scotch and make the one means of