A view outside the mud walls of Basra, perhaps during the time described. Donkeys and porters are at work, perhaps carrying dates to market. Abbassid, a bit too Darwinist for his own good, too often looked at people far away, and pretended to himself that they were bees.     It was Zoltan Abbassid who had brought the Mesopotamian honeybee to England. Abbassid had discovered these bees near Basra, in the south of Mesopotamia.