817 



BAGHDAD. 



BAGHDAD. 



818 



most numerous. To them the vicinity is consecrated by the 

 recollections of their captivity, and by the tombs of the prophets 

 Ezekiel and Ezra. The latter is situated near the junction of the 

 Tigris and the Euphrates, the former to the south-west of Hillah : 

 both are places of pilgrimage to both Jews and Moslems. 



The only women in Baghdad who exhibit any part of the face in 

 the streets are the Arab females. Their dress consists in general of 

 an exceedingly wide chemise of red or blue cotton, to which in winter 

 is added a cloak similar to that worn by the men. They seldom wear 

 shoes, and never stockings ; but about the head they wear a mass of 

 black cotton or silk stuff, whick is rather gracefully disposed. It is 

 brought round so as to cover the neck and throat and the lower part 

 of the face. This head-dress is often profusely ornamented with 

 beads, shells, and current and ancient coins. They are also fond of 

 wearing anklets and bracelets of silver, which are generally more than 

 an inch in diameter, and suggest the idea of shackles rather than 

 ornaments. But their most whimsical decoration is worn on one side 

 of the nose, which is bored for the purpose : it consists of a gold or 

 gilt button, about the size of a halfpenny, in the centre of which a 

 small tonjuoise stone or a blue bead is inserted. Their faces, arms, 

 and other parts of their bodies are also decorated with stars, flowers, 

 and other figures, stained on the skin with a blue colour, and the 

 effect of which is exceedingly unpleasing to a European eye. The 

 Turkish and other women so muffle themselves up when they go out, 

 as to appear the most shapeless masses imaginable. They are 

 enveloped in large sheets of checked blue linen, which cover them 

 from head to foot. These sheets are sometimes of crimson silk, 

 striped with white. Their legs are inclosed in formidable jack-boots 

 of yellow leather ; and their faces are covered with a stiff and thick 

 black horse-hair veil, through which they can see perfectly, although 

 it appears to the spectator like painted tin. Ladies of any con 

 federation generally ride out astride on the backs of mares or asses, 

 most generally the latter, which are fine large animals, and in many 

 parts of the town are kept standing, ready saddled, for hire. Asses 

 of a white colour are common, and are preferred for this service ; but 

 the taste of the people requires their appearance to be improved by 

 stains of a dusty orange colour. 



Baghdad was formerly a great emporium of eastern commerce. 

 Besides the traffic in its own manufactures, it was the entrepot for the 

 commodities of Eastern and Western Asia. It was still, until very 

 lately, a place of considerable trade, the commodities of India 

 being brought thither by water, and thence dispersed by land to 

 different parts of the Turkish empire ; the Persians also took to 

 Baghdad such of their goods as were intended for the Turkish market. 

 But as the Persians now send to Constantinople by the safer and 

 more direct road of Erz-rum and Tocat, as the government of the 

 Porte is too weak to protect the property of the merchants from the 

 Arabs of the river and the desert, and as European commerce with 

 India is now carried on by way of the Red Sea or the Cape, the trade of 

 Baghdad has greatly declined. Persia too receives her supplies from 

 India no longer through Baghdad, but directly by way of the Persian 

 Gulf. There is now only one caravan yearly from each of the cities 

 Aleppo and Damascus to Baghdad, conveying cotton-twist, calicoes, 

 shirtings, prints, imitation shaws, woollen cloths, &c., generally of 

 European manufacture. The cost of conveyance across the desert ie 

 enormous, the Shammar, Anezeh, and other Arab tribes, each laying a 

 heavy toll upon the goods, which is submitted to in order to ward 

 off their plundering propensities. 



The chief manufactures of Baghdad are red and yellow leather, 

 which are held in high estimation throughout Turkey ; a sort of plush, 

 in shawl patterns, often very rich and beautiful, and used by the 

 Turks for covering the cushions which form their divans or sofas ; 

 Arabian cloaks, and some stuffs of silk and cotton. The exports in 

 return to Damascus and Aleppo consist of specie, tombak, galls, buffalo 

 bides, East India indigo, pearls, Cashmere shawls, Mocha coffee, &c. 



Baghdad was founded by the Caliph Abu Jaafer al Mansur, hi A.D. 

 763, whether on the site of a former city or not is unknown ; but it is 

 agreed that the materials were drawn from Ctesiphon and Seleucia. 

 The town was much improved by Harun al Raschid, who is said to 

 have been the first who built on the eastern bank of the Tigris, con- 

 necting the two parts by a bridge of boats. It remained a most 

 flourishing metropolitan city until the year 1259, when the town was 

 taken by storm by Hulaku, a grandson of Genghiz Khan, and the 

 dynasty of the caliphs was extinguished. Baghdad remained under 

 the Tartars until the year 1393, when it was taken by Tamerlane, on 

 whose approach the Sultan Ahmed abandoned the place and took 

 refuge in the territories of the Greek emperor. It was soon however 

 retaken by Timur, and for several subsequent years it was alternately 

 in his possession, in that of the deposed Sultan, or of the Turkoman 

 Kara Yuref. Kara Yusef ultimately remained in undisturbed possession 

 of the place, and it continued under his descendants until A.D. 1470, 

 when they were driven out by Ussum Cassim, whose family reigned 

 39 years in Baghdad. Shah Ismael, the founder of the Suffide dynasty 

 in Persia, then made himself master of it. From that time to the 

 present the town has been an object of occasional contention between 

 the Persians and the Turks. It was retaken by the Turkish sultan, 

 Solyman the Magnificent; and it was regained by Sli.ih AMias the 

 Great of Persia; but the Persians were ultimately obliged to 



OT.OO. DIV. VOL. I. 



surrender the place to the Sultan Murad IV., by whom it was besieged 

 with an army of 300,000 men, in the year A.D. 1638. It has since 

 been nominally subject to the Porte. 



BAGHDAD, PASHALIC OF, " formerly," says Dr. Layard in his 

 ' Discoveries in the Ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, 1 " one of the 

 most important and wealthy provinces of the Turkish empire, and 

 the first in rank, has been recently divided into several distinct govern- 

 ments. It once extended from Diarbekr to the Persian Gulf, and was 

 first curtailed about fifteen years ago, when Diarbekr and Mosul 

 were placed under independent pachas. Lately it has been reduced 

 to the districts surrounding the city with the Arab tribes who encamp 

 in the neighbourhood ; Kerkouk, Suleimaniyah, and Busrah being 

 formed into separate governments." In the present article the pashalic 

 is treated of under its former extent, as little is known either of the 

 extent or boundaries of the new divisions. The province extends in 

 the form of a triangle, between 30 and 37 N. lat., 38 40' and 47 30' 

 E. longt The vertex of the triangle is at the head of the Persian 

 Gulf; its eastern side borders on Persia and Kurdistan ; on the south 

 and west it is bounded by the Arabian Desert. The base of the 

 triangle is an irregular line facing the north-west, where it touches 

 the pashalics of Orfa, Diarbekr, and Mosul. The greatest length from 

 the head of the Persian Gulf to the north-west boundary is about 

 630 miles ; the length of the base is about 400 miles : the area of the 

 province therefore exceeds 100,000 square miles. The population is 

 supposed not to exceed 1,200,000. 



The Pashalic of Baghdad comprehends the principal part of the 

 ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria, the whole of Babylonia and Chal- 

 daea, and a considerable portion of Susiana. The part of Mesopotamia 

 which is comprehended in the modern Pashalic of Baghdad is now 

 called Aljezirah, or the Island ; Babylonia and Chaldsea form Irak 

 Arabi ; Assyria partly corresponds to Kurdistan ; and the present 

 Khuzistan was the ancient Susiana. 



This extensive territory is traversed by the Euphrates and Tigris 

 which ultimately unite and enter the Persian Gulf in a single stream. 

 The Euphrates enters the pashalic at Deir to the south of the Abd-ul- 

 Azeez hills, and 18 miles above the mouth of the Khabur. It is 

 shown by Colonel Chesney's expedition to be navigable for small 

 steamers throughout its whole course in the province, and indeed for 

 850 miles from its mouth up to the town of Balis, whence it runs in a 

 general south-east course, but with many windings to its mouth in 

 the Persian Gulf. 



The Tigris flows to the eastward of the Euphrates, and from its 

 entrance into the province it runs nearly south to the city of Baghdad, 

 whence its course is nearly parallel to the Euphrates, as far as the 

 Shatt-el-Hie Canal, which joins the two rivers and crosses the meridian 

 of 46 E. Hence the Tigris sweeps round to the north-east, east, 

 and south-east, making a large bend, and then runs to the south of 

 south-east to its junction with the Euphrates at Kurna. 



The two rivers within the limits of this territory are most distant 

 from each other between Deir on the Euphrates and the point where 

 the Great Zab enters the Tigris, where the distance is about 180 miles, 

 and the nearest approach is at Baghdad, where the distance of the 

 Tigris from the Euphrates does not exceed 30 miles. Here the two 

 rivers are united by the Saklawiyeh Canal. The stream formed by 

 the junction of these two great rivers at Kurna takes the name 

 of Snatt-el-Arab, and flows south-east to the Persian Gulf, which it 

 enters by the great mouth near 30 N. lat. The length of the 

 Shatt-el-Arab is about 150 miles, its breadth varies from 1200 feet 

 at Mohammerah, a trading town at the mouth of the Karun, to 

 700 yards at Basrah and 600 yards at Kurna. Its depth varies from 

 30 to 20 leet. The Euphrates and Tigris both having their rise in the 

 high table-lands of Armenia are subject to periodical floods on the 

 melting of the snow in spring, and again, though in a less degree, 

 from the rains which fall in the highlands in October. [ARMENIA ; 

 EUPHRATES ; TIGRIS.] 



From the Khabur to its junction with the Tigris the Euphrates 

 receives only a few very inconsiderable streams ; on one side it has 

 the deserts and on the other the contracted region of Aljezirah and 

 Irak Arabi. The Jfhalur is the ancient Chaboras, the Kebar of the 

 Old Testament. It rises to the north of the Abd-ul-Azeez hills in 

 40 E. long, at Ras-al-Ain, and flows eastward to its junction with the 

 Jeruger (also called the Jakhjakhah), the ancient Mygdonius ; near 

 the junction is the cone and crater of Koukab, 300 feet high above 

 the plain. The Jeruger is formed by two head-streams which spring 

 from the Jebel Mardin ; the western one passes Nisibin. After the 

 junction of the Jeruger with the Khabur the united stream runs 

 south by west in the. direction of the former to the Euphrates at the 

 rums of the ancient city of Carchemish, now called Karkeseea and 

 Abou Psera. The valley of the Khabur, between the Abd-ul-Azeez on 

 the west and the Sinjar Mountains on the east, abounds in rich 

 pastures, on which the Shammar Arabs encamp during the summer. 

 The stream is belted with poplars, tamarisks and brushwood. The 

 river is crossed by some ledges which cause rapids. The meadows on 

 its banks are adorned in summer with a succession of flowers of 

 different colours and of the most brilliant hues. In the plain are 

 numerous mounds, the sites of Assyrian towns. To this valley the 

 children of Israel after the destruction of Samaria were brought 

 captive by the Assyrian king, and here Ezekiel announced his visions 



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