Diary 47 of 1897 Auto-generated from TEI-XML [Preliminary Version] Joseph Mathia Svoboda Nowf A. Allawi, Walter Andrews, Rachel Brown, Joshua Crowgey, Aaron Gupta, Kelsey Haakanson, Victoria Wellington, Jason Yoon Eds. Copyright c 2016. Newbook Digital Texts in the Humanities Svoboda Diaries Project All Rights Reserved. ii Contents Diary 47 (Nov. 1897-Aug. 1898): Summary vii (Kearby Chess) . vii Newbook Digital Texts in the Humanities: Svoboda Diaries: Joseph Mathia Svoboda 1 Continued from Diary No. 46 of 1896/7 [4 NOV 1897 | V047 00 N] 3 Baghdad to Basreh [5 NOV 1897 | V047 01 S]Voy 366 5 Basreh to Baghdad [9 NOV 1897 | V047 02 N] 9 Baghdad to Basrah [19 NOV 1897 | V047 03 S] 13 Basreh to Baghdad [24 NOV 1897 | V047 04 N] 17 Baghdad to Basreh [3 DEC 1897 | V047 05 S] 21 Basreh to Baghdad [7 DEC 1897 | V047 06 N] 25 Baghdad to Basreh [17 DEC 1897 | V047 07 S] 29 Basreh to Baghdad [22 DEC 1897 | V047 08 N] 33 Baghdad to Basreh [31 DEC 1897 | V047 09 S] 37 Basreh to Baghdad [4 JAN 1898 | V047 10 N] 41 Baghdad to Basreh [14 JAN 1898 | V047 11 S] 47 Basreh to Baghdad [20 JAN 1898 | V047 12 N] 51 iii iv Baghdad to Basreh [28 JAN 1898 | V047 13 S] 57 Basreh to Baghdad [2 FEB 1898 | V047 14 N]in the S.S. Blosse Lynch Voy 242~ 61 Baghdad to Basreh [11 FEB 1898 | V047 15 S] 65 Basreh to Baghdad [15 FEB 1898 | V047 16 N] 69 Baghdad to Basreh [24 FEB 1898 | V047 17 S] 73 Basreh to Baghdad [28 FEB 1898 | V047 18 N] 77 Baghdad to Basreh [11 MAR 1898 | V047 19 S] 83 Basreh to Baghdad [14 MAR 1898 | V047 20 N] 85 Baghdad to Basreh [24 MAR 1898 | V047 21 S] 91 Basreh to Baghdad [28 MAR 1898 | V047 22 N] 95 Baghdad to Basreh [7 APR 1898 | V047 23 S] 99 Basreh to Baghdad [11 APR 1898 | V047 24 N] 103 Baghdad to Basreh [21 APR 1898 | V047 25 S] 109 Basreh to Baghdad [24 APR 1898 | V047 26 N] 113 Baghdad to Basreh [5 MAY 1898 | V047 27 S] 119 Basreh to Baghdad [9 MAY 1898 | V047 28 N] 123 Baghdad to Basrah [19 MAY 1898 | V047 29 S] 129 Basreh to Baghdad [23 MAY 1898 | V047 30 N] 133 Baghdad to Basreh [2 JUN 1898 | V047 31 S] 137 Basreh to Baghdad [6 JUN 1898 | V047 32 N] 141 Baghdad to Basreh [16 JUN 1898 | V047 33 S] 145 Basreh to Baghdad [20 JUN 1898 | V047 34 N] 149 v Baghdad to Basreh [30 JUN 1898 | V047 35 S] 155 Basreh to Baghdad [4 JUL 1898 | V047 36 N] 159 Baghdad to Basreh [14 JUL 1898 | V047 37 S] 165 Basreh to Baghdad [18 JUL 1898 | V047 38 N] 169 Baghdad to Basreh [28 JUL 1898 | V047 39 S] 175 Basreh to Baghdad [1 AUG 1898 | V047 40 N] 181 vi Diary 47 (Nov. 1897-Aug. 1898): Summary (Kearby Chess) Diary 47 begins on November 4, 1897. According to his diary, Joseph arrived back in Baghdad from his journey to Europe with his son Alexander, his wife Eliza, and the outgoing British Consul Col. Mockler on October 14. He quickly settled back in to his normal life, traveling up and down the Tigris River from Baghdad to Basra and back, aboard the steamers of the Lynch company. Typically, Joseph was clerk aboard the H. Blosse Lynch, though on occasion his services were required aboard her newer sister ship, the Mejidieh. At home in Baghdad, Joseph corresponded with his son by mail. Alexander had begun studying several subjects in school, including German. Joseph also noted in his diary that he had paid a carpenter for four days worth of work while he was away at Basra, part of an ongoing series of improvements to his home in Baghdad. (4 November 1897, 2-3) Evidently, Eliza had returned to Iraq separately from Joseph, she had recently arrived at Basra in the SS Arabistan, one of several British steamers which made a regular run from Europe, through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf before traveling on to India. On Monday, November 8, Joseph met Eliza at Basra. Upon meeting her again, he wrote in his diary: "I could not keep myself from the tears on seeing her without my son Alexander." (8 Nov. 1897, 9) The news that she brought was just as bad. She complained that in Paris, their family friend Ibrahim Gejou had treated them quite poorly. He was unprepared for their arrival and charged them extra for her to stay in the same room with Alexander. To make matters worse, Eliza believed that Alexander should not remain in Paris because he spent too much money too quickly and made a habit of selling his postage stamps instead of using them to write home. The whole conversation left Joseph so very sorry & broken hearted that [he]lost all the pleasure of talking with her about anything else. That night, he could not sleep well on vii viii account of the excessive mosquitoes and his wife's story of his son's life in Paris. (8 Nov. 1897, 10) Upon their return to Baghdad together, the rest of the family was glad to see Joseph and Eliza once again. Throughout November, Joseph often noted that the weather was unusually cold and calm, recording morning temperatures in the low thirties Fahrenheit, and overnight temperatures that sometimes dipped as low as the mid-twenties. On Tuesday the 16th, Joseph took the time to call on the new British Consul General, Colonel Lock, who had replaced the outgoing Col. Mockler. Lock, it seems, was rather interested in performing archaological expeditions in the surrounding desert. An avid amateur archaeologist himself, Joseph recommended that Lock visit the site of Sippar at Tell Abu Habbah, southwest of Baghdad. Joseph then went to meet the new French Vice Consul M. Ronet, and engineer M. Jacquers. (16 Nov. 1897, 17-18) After visiting with some family on November 17th, tending to some home business, and receiving another letter from his son, Joseph embarked for Basra again on the 19th. Throughout the journey, Joseph continually complained of the cold weather and its ill effects on his health. At Basra, they took on an important cargo: the body of Sheikh Mezel of the Mahomerah tribe. Mezel had been murdered by his brother Khazal, and the body was being transported to the Shia holy city of Karbala for burial. On this journey, Joseph listed among the notable passengers: the new Inspector for the Quarantine of Baghdad dispatched by Constantinople, Dr. Z. Yeronimakus; Dr. Malakis of the Basra Quarantine and his clerk Solon Calothi, coming for an unspecified political affair, as well as Ezra Daniel the Jew Apothecary. (23-4 Nov. 1897, 27-9) On November 28, Joseph learned of the death of Yousif Sayegh, a relative of his wife Eliza's late husband Fathallah. Joseph and his brother-in-law Antone Marine attended a wake at the Sayegh family home in Baghdad, where Yousif had lived as the last resident after his remaining brothers in the clergy moved north to Mosul. Later that afternoon, Joseph, Antone Marine, and their friend Yousif Korkis Tessy accompanied the body from the Sayegh home to the Armenian Church near the ancient citadel in the northwest corner of Baghdad, where funeral services were held. The Baghdadi Christian community turned out in droves to pay their respects, including the Russian consul Mr. Mashkow. Following the funeral, the body was taken by mourning carriage to the Christian cemetery complex on the eastern outskirts of the city, where it was interred. (28 Nov. 1897, 34-5) Aside from unusually rainy and gloomy weather, the late autumn and early winter of 1897 was a relatively uneventful time. The work on the Svoboda family home continued, he noted in his diary that he painted the pillars and railings in his home yellow and green. (30 Nov. 1897, 37) In December, Joseph continued to correspond with Alexander, who complained of the bitterly cold winter in Paris, the like of which ix he had rarely experienced { temperature always at zero, or freezing point. (16 Dec. 1897, 53) Once, on a journey from Baghdad to Basra, Joseph noted that some of his passengers were the former administrators of the Basra Quarantine, Dr. Lubiez and Dr. Malakis. They, along with their entire staff, had been dismissed from their positions for reasons that Joseph was not aware of, and were returning to Istanbul via the Suez Canal in the steamer Alphonse Parran. (17 Dec. 1897, 55) On the same trip to Basra, Joseph gave Rezooki Sayegh three Arabic language manuscripts to send to Alexander via Bombay so that they could be sold in Paris. Joseph also sent four Rumelian Railway lottery bonds (purchased at a price of 28 Turkish Lira) for Alexander to sell in exchange for some of the Paris Exhibition Lottery bonds for 1900 for 1 Napoleon apiece. (21 December 1897, 59-60) On Christmas Day, Joseph noted that they passed the Ottoman steamers Mossul and Ressafah near Bughela carrying Ottoman soldiers to Kuwait to settle a disturbance, as he put it, between the followers of the Sheikh of Kweit Moobarak el Subah and his brother's sons, as his brother Mahomed was Killed by the former 2 years ago, the Arabs have split in two parts. Later, the crew celebrated Christmas aboard the Blosse Lynch with a caked baked by Captain Cowley's butler Francis.