THE ME80P0TAMIAN STEPPE. 69 



The country from the foot of the Sinjar Mountains to 

 Mossul is sHghtly hilly, while an occasional village and 

 patch of cultivation are to be met v^ith ; but the general 

 appearance is sufficiently depressing, and it comes as an 

 intense relief when, from the summit of some slight 

 eminence, the snow-clad wall of the Tiari heights to 

 the east of the Tigris becomes visible, an effectual 

 boundary to the seemingly interminable steppe. 



From the description given in the foregoing pages 

 it will be gathered that the scene presented by the 

 Mesopotamian desert is anything but exhilarating ; but, 

 lest a wrong impression be gained, it must be added 

 that at the time I saw the country it was neither 

 at its best — nor quite at its worst. In spring much 

 of the country teems with flowers and herbage, and 

 presents an appearance of brilliant verdure resembling 

 rather the broad stretches of an English down than 

 the arid reaches of an Asian desert. Such viridity, 

 however, is short-lived, and with the first feverish 

 breath of summer all vegetation withers, as, under the 

 fierce glare of an Eastern sun, the land becomes scorched 

 and burnt, and where for a few short weeks a veritable 

 garden flourished, nothing remains but a parched and 

 dessicated waste, presenting all the savage horror of 

 lifeless and dust-strewn desolation. Few Enoflishmen 

 have known the country as did Sir Henry Layard, who 

 has left us a vivid description of the rapid change from 

 spring to summer : " The change to summer had been 

 as rapid as that which ushered in the spring. The 

 verdure of the plain had perished almost in a day. Hot 

 winds coming from the desert had -burnt up and carried 

 away the shrubs ; flights of locusts, darkening the air, 

 had destroyed the few patches of cultivation, and had 

 completed the havoc commenced by the heat of the 

 sun." 



