Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

354 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
bricks, eleven inches square and four inches thick, occur.
They are finely modelled bricks, and are firm and solid, as
they are taken from their walls. They are the prettiest
crude bricks I have anywhere seen." But we look in vain
for an attempt to describe these remarkable walls, to trace
their course, to measure their dimensions, to draw their
ground plan, or to ascertain the prominent features and original
purpose of the rooms and houses which he was clearing
all
the while of their contents.
It was the depressive and enervating effect of the solitude
of the Babylonian desert and marshes which began seriously
to tell upon Haynes. The rapidly growing fear of constant
danger from " greedy " and revengeful Arabs, which
was the natural outcome of the former, took hold of him in
an alarming manner. " The great strain of maintaining
security of life and property is a weariness to the flesh."
"The atmosphere is thickening with danger, and I have
been compelled to appeal to the governor general of Baghdad
for protection." " I am getting worn out with the very
intensity of the increasing strain and struggle." " I have
never seen the time at
Nuffar when the danger was so great
as it is in these wearisome days of intrigue and fanaticism,
of murder and robbing." These are only a few of the sentences
which I quote from as many different letters written
in February and March, 1895. Three years later Haynes
viewed the conditions around Nuffar more calmly and in
a more objective light, for he did not hesitate for a moment
to take his wife among the same Arabs. And it is a remarkable
fact, deserving special notice, that in all the ten years
during which the expedition has owned its house (meftul)
at the edge of the Babylonian swamps, no attempt has ever
been made to open its door, to cut a hole into its walls, or
to steal its furniture and stores, whether the building was
occupied or left
to the care of the neighboring tribes.
There can be no doubt that excavations carried on in the