Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir. Agatha Christie
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Название: Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir
Автор: Agatha Christie
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007487202
isbn:
We have many local conversations on the various mounds approaching Tell Halaf. All hereabouts are various legends of El Baron—mainly the incredible sums he paid out in gold. Time has exaggerated the amount of gold. Even the German government, one feels, cannot have poured out the streams of precious metal in the way tradition has it! Everywhere north of Hasetshe are small villages and signs of cultivation. Since the arrival of the French and the departure of the Turkish rule, the country is being occupied again for the first time since Roman days.
We get home late. The weather is changing, a wind starts blowing, and it is very unpleasant, dust and sand flying in one’s face and making one’s eyes smart. We have a pleasant dinner with the French, though it has been a difficult business smartening oneself up, or rather, I should say, cleaning oneself up, since a clean blouse for myself and clean shirts for the men is all one can do! We have an excellent dinner and spend a very pleasant evening. We return through driving rain to our tents. An unquiet night, with dogs howling and the tents flapping and straining in the wind.
Forsaking the Habur for the time being, we make an excursion today on the Jaghjagha. An immense mound quite near at hand has excited my interest, until I discover that it is an extinct volcano—the Kawkab.
Our particular objective is one Tell Hamidi, of which we have heard good accounts, but it is difficult to reach, as there is no direct track. It means taking a line across country and the crossing of innumerable little ditches and wadis. Hamoudi is in great spirits this morning. Mac is quietly gloomy, and opines that we shall never get to the mound.
It takes us seven hours of motoring—a very tiring seven hours, with the car sticking more than once and having to be dug out.
Hamoudi surpasses himself on these occasions. He always considers a car as a kind of inferior though swifter horse. In any moment of uncertainty with a wadi ahead, Hamoudi’s voice rises excitedly, giving frenzied orders to Aristide.
‘Quickly—quickly! Give the machine no time to refuse! Rush at it! Rush at it!’
His disgust when Max stops the car and walks ahead to examine the difficulty is extreme. He shakes his head in utter dissatisfaction.
Not so, he seems to say, should you treat a high-mettled and nervous car! Give it no time to reflect and all will be well.
After detours, checks, and the taking on of local guides, we do at last reach the goal. Very beautiful Tell Hamidi looks in the afternoon sun, and it is with a sense of achievement that the car drives proudly up the gentle incline to its summit where we look down on a marsh teeming with wild duck.
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