BAGDAD 



on ' :rom the new and larger part, on 



hunk. For the most part the city is 

 squalid and dirty, with winding, narrow streets 

 and many ruins as reminders of its former 

 glory. The typical Turkish houses, without 

 windows on the street side, are also uninviting 

 and suggestive of gloom, but the interior court- 

 yards are often richly decorated and orna- 

 mented with gardens and fountains. There 

 are many mosques, some partly in ruins, and a 

 number of famous bazars, or markets, but with 

 the exception of the Governor-General's palace 

 and the citadel there are no public buildings 

 of importance. The population, which is esti- 

 mated at 150,000 to 225,000, is composed mostly 

 of Arabs, Turks, Armenians, Persians and Jews, 

 with a few Christians. 



Bagdad carries on a considerable trade in 

 leather, silks, carpets and ornamental fabrics, 

 and previous to the opening of the Suez Canal 

 in 1869 was one of the chief centers of trade 

 on the caravan route to India. Peace in Europe 



BAGDAD AND ITS RAILWAY 

 This line Is a, part of Germany's long-cher- 

 ished plan to secure rail connection between 

 Berlin and the Persian Gulf. Its hopes for 

 supremacy in Southwestern Asia would thus be 

 advanced. British victories defeated this ambi- 

 tion. 



and the completion of the Bagdad Railway will 

 greatly extend its commercial importance. The 

 city was founded in A. D. 762 by the Caliph 

 Almansur, and has been under Turkish rule 

 since 1638. In 1915 a British expeditionary 

 force, advancing northward from the Persian 

 (iulf, reached Ctesiphon, only eighteen miles 

 from Bagdad, and in 1917 another British army 

 took the city and penetrated northward (see 

 WAR OF THE NATIONS). 



Bagdad Railway. Bagdad lies on the natural 

 overland route from Constantinople to India, 

 and the desirability of constructing a railway 

 on this route was long seen. After Russian 

 and British offers to build such a line were 

 rejected, Turkey in 1902 officially gave the right 

 to a German company. The Euphrates Val- 



542 BAGPIPE 



ley or Bagdad Railway is usually called a 

 German enterprise, but it is interesting to 

 note that German capitalists invested only 

 forty per cent of the capital, French capitalists 

 supplied thirty per cent, and the balance was 

 divided among Austrian, Swiss, Italian and 

 Turkish financiers. The construction work pro- 

 ceeded slowly, and in disconnected sections, so 

 that in 1914, when Turkey entered the War 

 of the Nations, about 500 miles out of a total 

 of 1,314 miles were actually in operation. With 

 the outbreak of war the construction was 

 pushed rapidly, both because the line was of 

 military importance and because it was needed 

 to transport to Germany and Austria-Hungary 

 the mineral and agricultural products of Meso- 

 potamia. W.F.Z. 



BAGOT, bag' ot, SIR CHARLES (1781-1843), 

 British diplomatist and colonial administrator, 

 Governor-General of the Union of Canada in 

 1842. At various times from 1814 to 1834 he 

 represented his government at Paris, Washing- 

 ton, Petrograd, The Hague and Vienna. While 

 at Washington he negotiated the Rush-Bagot 

 treaty, which limited the number and size of 

 war vessels on the Great Lakes. In January, 

 1842, Bagot entered on his duties as Governor- 

 General of Canada, the province which had 

 been formed in the preceding year by the union 

 of Upper and Lower Canada. Though ill 

 health compelled him to resign before the end 

 of the year, his term of ^ office is important 

 because it marks the beginning of responsible 

 government in Canada. Baron Sydenham had 

 recognized the principle a year before, but had 

 not always acted in accordance with it. It was 

 Sir Charles Bagot who first summoned Robert 

 Baldwin to form a ministry whose responsi- 

 bility to the legislative branch of the govern- 

 ment was recognized (see BALDWIN, ROBERT). 

 Bagot himself was a Tory, and believed the 

 ministry should be responsible only to the 

 Crown, yet he appreciated that he was in Can- 

 ada not to gratify his own wishes but to gov- 

 ern in accordance with the popular will. 



BAGPIPE, a musical wind instrument, now 

 regarded as the national instrument of Scot- 

 land. It consists of a leather bag, into which 

 air is blown through a pipe. Holding the bag 

 under his left arm, the performer forces air 

 into four other pipes by pressure of his elbow. 

 In the Highland form, one pipe, called the 

 chanter, plays the melody; of the other three, 

 called drones, two emit a monotone in unison 

 with the lowest note of the chanter and the 

 third gives forth a note an octave lower. The 



