Sun. 12. [12 April 1914] ...... day of the silk mantles[?] - but I did not go
to mass. I packed and had a financial dispute with Ali. Mr Wills says
that drunkenness and dancing girls have only been common here
since the Constitution - they are civilization. The dancing girls are
Jewesses, all from Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)] and
Aleppo [Halab]. When a Moslem takes to drink, then he is lost.
None of the rich men fast. 'Abd al Qadir's brother fasted last
Ramazan - he used to come in and tell Mr W. how awful it was and that
he wd never do it again. The poor fast, some of them at least; even
the poor fast less. The women have more liberty, go about less
veiled. They used not to go about at all. The Jews sit in the coffee
shops, are well treated, talk and drive with Moslems. Sayyid Daud,
who will next be Naqib, was seen driving with an Armenian. He is the
Naqib's nephew. At Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] and here in the
desert, people go about openly with dancing girls. They make
immense sums of money - the men sit gambling, they come in: when
1[?] man wins £5 he tosses 2 to a girl. She earns £60 a night. The
[sic] dance all night in the big kahwah here on the Tigris. No reformed
Islam is perceptible. After lunch came 'Abd al Rahman Jamil Zadeh
and brought a relative. Then the Tods and I went in Abd al Qadir's
launch nearly up to Qazimain [Kadhimain (Al Kazimiyah)] in blazing
heat - the river looking lovely, past the Khalif's palace and the guffa
port on the W. bank. We got out and had tea under flowering
Tamarisk and children brought us roses. Keleks came down, they
and the palms reflected in the river (for our talk go on 4 pages [see
end of entry for 14 April].) The sun set and we dropped down,
Baghdad shimmering through the heat haze like a fairy city. In the
dusk to 'Abd al Qadir's house. Went up through his rose court to his
strange drawing room to see a big picture of Nazim Pasha. So home
in the night. The cinematograph close by caught fire after dinner and
blazed into the night.