Had I thought more carefully about the dried and cracked mud of the riverbank I would have avoided the disappointment awaiting us. When we arrived at the junction where the canal met the river, it was to find a sizeable settlement of whitewashed houses and reed-thatched storage sheds. Moored against the riverbank lay a score of boats, empty and idle. The canal itself was dry.
‘If you had got here two months ago, it would have been different,’ the canal superintendent told me, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘The canal is only open when the water level in the Nile is high enough. When the Nile flood recedes, the canal empties out until just a few puddles remain.’
We were seated on cushions on the floor of his office where, at times of high water, the merchants came to pay the tolls that allowed them to use the canal. It was a large, comfortable room, furnished in the local style with low tables and carved chests that contained his ledgers. Slatted shutters over the window openings allowed any breeze to circulate, and the building’s thick mud walls served as a barrier to the heat outside.
‘Right now there are places in the canal where you couldn’t float a child’s toy,’ he went on, shifting his weight on his cushion. He was very corpulent, his thighs bulging under his gown as he sat cross-legged. A thin gold chain almost disappeared into the fleshy folds of his neck.
‘Is there no way of retaining the flood water in the canal?’ It was the sort of question that Protis would have posed. I felt a sudden wrench of sorrow that the young Greek was no longer with us. He would have loved to suggest an ingenious solution to a practical problem.
‘There would be no point,’ said the superintendent. ‘If we sealed the mouth of the canal and trapped the water inside, the summer sun would suck it all up in a matter of weeks or it would seep away through bed of the canal. And there would have to be a system of lifting the cargoes from river level and loading them on canal boats.’
He paused and gave me a calculating look. ‘You are not the first to have arrived here after the canal has shut.’
I waited for him to go on.
The superintendent swatted away a fly circling near his face. ‘If the cargo is urgent, a caravan can be arranged.’
‘A caravan?’ I asked, feigning ignorance though I had been waiting for him to make the suggestion. Abram had learned that the superintendent supplemented his income by privately hiring out the labour force that should have been doing canal maintenance.
‘A road runs alongside the canal almost as far as the eastern marshlands. There it branches off and goes directly to the port at al-Qulzum. The land journey only takes a few days more than if you had gone by water. Regrettably, it involves hiring waggons, draught animals, baggage handlers and guards . . . which, of course, incurs extra expense.’ He paused to allow the last words to sink in.
I decided that, for appearance’s sake, I should haggle. ‘I don’t understand the need for guards. Are the caliph’s governors not charged with ensuring the security of travellers?’
‘The guards are there to protect against wild animals,’ the superintendent answered smoothly. ‘Beyond the marshland the desert is infested with lions.’
‘And hyenas?’ I said, meaning to sound sarcastic.
Unexpectedly he agreed. ‘Of course. Lions and hyenas. They go together and they prey on travellers.’
The superintendent was well aware that I had no choice but to hire a caravan. The canal would not reopen for many months and even if the ice bears survived the long delay, I did not fancy arriving in Baghdad late and with mangy, half-starved animals.
With heartfelt insincerity I told him that I would be most grateful if he would arrange a caravan to transport my menagerie across the desert. He struggled to his feet with an effort and assured me in the same spirit of fraudulent friendship that my well-being and the success of my mission were close to his heart. He would make sure that the caravan would be ready to depart within a week.
Walo was waiting for me outside, shifting from foot to foot with impatience. ‘Can you come at once,’ he blurted out.
Alarmed, I asked, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the animals, is there?’
‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘There’s something you must see.’
His face set in a worried frown, he led me down a side-street of modest whitewashed houses, their wooden doors warped and cracked by the sun. It was mid-morning and there was almost no one about. A few birds like starlings, dark brown with bright yellow bills and legs, flew down to peck at the piles of rubbish. We turned down an alleyway between high blank walls where the outer layer of mud was flaking off in scabby patches, and finally came to the rear of a long, low stable building. From the far side I could hear a medley of strange sounds. The background noise was a moaning and grumbling like a herd of cows in distress. Punctuating this clamour were sudden angry roars and enormous bubbling belches. I could not imagine what creatures would utter such constant complaints. Walo and I walked round the corner of the building and there in front of us was a row of bizarre creatures lined up beside a long water trough. On ungainly legs, they stood taller than a man and had serpent necks. Several of them swung their heads to look at us as we stepped into view, and greeted us with those loud, disagreeable groans.