Carchemish--1924 a.d

THE Fourth of July in Aleppo is clear and blazing like any other day in July. At half-past five in the morning the sun already burns down with all the force of the Syrian desert, as I pick my way across lots to the Bagdad station. Fadil is there first with the lunch. It is to be a day’s excursion, just the two of us, friends in spite of those algebra classes down in Beirut. We go to see what remains of the old Euphrates city after centuries of war and massacre.

The Aleppo station of the Bagdadbahn. It is a beautiful depot in Oriental style, but with modern equipment. The railroad has a fine roadbed, a block-signal system, beautiful cars, where even the third-class compartments have curtains over the windows, and now there are three trains one way out to the great river and two trains back every week. So says the schedule, at least. The extra allowance seems to be for those trains which fall into the hands of the bandits and do not get back.

At the ticket office there is a crowd of would-be passengers, mainly wild men from the desert, not the kind one would want to meet alone in the open on a dark night. The rail in front of the window tries to keep the people from getting in more than one at a time, but it does not work. They come from both sides; they stand outside the rail and reach across. But we can push and elbow with the best of them and we get there.

‘But, monsieur, there can be no ticket to Jerablus without permission from the police.’

We find the police. The American passport is solemnly examined, especially the French and British visas, which have nothing to do with the present situation, but they want to show me that they are thorough. There is a slight hitch when it is discovered that the name above the picture on my passport is Charles E. Hughes, while my card bears a quite different one; but that is soon explained, and the permission is given. But as for Fadil, he is a Syrian. He wishes to go a hundred yards into Turkey. For that he must have special permission from Angora, a matter of two weeks.

The boy chokes back his tears. ‘Sir, take the lunch.’ He is off before I can see how badly he feels over getting left. I go ahead, though I know no Turkish and little of any other language that is likely to serve. The train was ready, of course, an hour ago. Ah! this railway is a magnificent monument to the frustrated ambition of those who conceived the whole Mitteleuropa scheme. It is five minutes to six. Dang-da-dangda-dang-da-dang — dang — DANG! It is a second bell. No one ever heard a first bell rung in these stations. Pandemonium increases. Papers, food, shines, all are provided and ready for those with the silver barghuts at hand, for these people have no use for the legal money, based on the fluctuating French franc. At six the bell is rung with great fury, and at the end comes dang, DANG, DANG! The train is ready to go — almost. The engine whistle blows three times, the conductor blows his horn three times. The engine whistle blows two times, the conductor blows his horn two times. The engine blows its whistle once, there is much shouting, and the train starts.

There are stations every twenty minutes or so, and at each stop most of the passengers leave the train to get water from the wells which the German engineers have dug all along. Again the bells ring, the people make a mad scramble for their places, the whistle and the horn blow their blasts, and the train gets off to a leisurely start. Between the stations the police come and demand the passports of all the travelers. They note down on their forms the name, age, profession, destination, father’s name, mother’s name, their ages, and all other facts that they can elicit, all of which is to be copied off on the record books of the Serail or foreign office at Aleppo or Angora. And then the gendarme writes his name in Turkish or Arabic on the passport, so that ‘the khawaja may take it to America.’

The train rambles on. It is only a hundred level miles, but it takes more than four hours to get there. We reach the Turkish-Syrian frontier and run along it. On the left side of the train, at each station, march the Turkish soldiers; on the right side march the French. A French soldier, on his way out to the camp at Jerablus, wants to get off and go to the well to fill his canteen, but the well is fifty feet from the train and on the Turkish side, so that it is in a foreign country. Hard is it to tell what international tension might result in Paris and Angora, to say nothing of London and Rome, if that soldier in uniform were allowed to make that trip into Turkish territory. But the sentinel is awake. He lowers his bayonet, the Frenchman steps back. The situation is saved. And then another Turk standing near offers to walk over wit h the canteen to get the water, and the poilu’s thirst is quenched. All is well.

At last we come to the Euphrates, and here the train must stop. The bridge was blown up during the Great War and is not yet repaired. My passport has disappeared with the last policeman, and I go in pursuit. Finding it in an office with several officers of the forces of the Turkish Republic, I advance with much trepidation. His Excellency looks me over. ‘Where the hell do you want to go?' says he in his best Turkish. I answer in all the Arabic I know. He does not get it, but would rather not appear to me to be ignorant, so he very doubtfully lets me go, and orders a soldier to trail me. The man does, but a cigarette is enough to persuade him to sit in the shade while I explore the ruins until I am ready to come back to the station. Then he takes up the pursuit again and all appears to be in order.

I wonder if it was this hot when Pharaoh Necho and our old friend Nebuchadnezzar had their skirmish on this field. If so, I don’t blame Necho for starting back for the comparative coolness of the Nile Valley. Lizards and snakes share the ruins of the great city with me, and a very old lizard, the size of a young crocodile, comes out to watch me stroll along the muddy bank of the tawny Euphrates.

The speeches and fireworks of the cities of America seem a long way off to-day, among all these reliefs and inscriptions of the Hittites.

It is early yet, but I have seen enough. The sun burns through the inch of cork over my head, and there is no real shade nearer than the station. So back there I go, followed by my private sentinel. By this time they have found someone who speaks French and they hope to satisfy themselves as to the strange doings of this queerlooking foreigner. But the explanation is stranger than the performance. They finally decide that it is just another of these fool Americans, who risk their necks and go off into the heat and dirt to see a lot of miserable ruins, when it would be much more comfortable in some café back in the city, with plenty of boza and a cinema.

And so I return to Aleppo. The train has many freight cars to pick up here and there, and takes more than five hours for the trip. A Turk comes over to show that he knows just a little French, and for the prestige that he will get in the eyes of his fellows from conversation with me. I learn much wondrous historical and political gossip. There is no doubt that the Hittites and the Ottoman Turks are one and the same people, and that it was one of Mustapha Kemal’s own ancestors who built this city here at Carchemish. All are sure that there will be a war along here before the end of the year, when Turkey and England fight over Mosul. Such are the strange and false ideas that can be absorbed in such a place.

The sunset is hotter than the sunrise was, as the engine and carriages meander back into that palatial Aleppo station. The youthful Turk, by name Suleyman, has been waiting for me for two hours with the tennis rackets ready for a game; but it is too late now, and there is nothing to do but go to his house, and there in the fragrant and cool garden, by the playing fountain and under the orange trees and grape arbors, eat our supper. And we talk of radio and the chances of hearing Berlin and Paris while we sip our bitter Arabic coffee, in this, perhaps the oldest city in the world now standing.

The Fourth is over.