A Dweller in Mesopotamia

Maxwell was sent to Mesopotamia to make sketches for the Imperial War Museum. He saw a good deal of the country, going up the Euphrates as far as Hit. He records his impressions in a few pleasant but superficial chapters. Like most visitors, he found that Baghdad and Basra, on close inspection, have none of the glamour which surrounds them in the Arabian Nights. Yet Mr. Maxwell's sketches, especially those which are reproduced in colour, show that the artist can find a great deal of beauty even in Mesopotamia. The ruins of Babylon at sunrise and in moonlight, dawn at Amara, Sheikh Saad with the broad blue river in the foreground and the snow- tipped blue Persian hills in the distance, Hit's walla reddened by the sunset glow, and Baghdad streets on a clear starlit night are among the many attractive themes that Mr. Maxwell found in the course of his tour. His pictures are distinctly interesting.