THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY. 



the elements of public security ; but it is to be feared 

 that from here on to Baghdad the country to be 

 traversed can boast neither of the one nor of the other. 

 After crossing the Euphrates and the low ridge of 

 Jebel Tek-Tek, the line will run through a country 

 consisting of a practically featureless steppe, whose 

 rolling undulations succeed one another with mono- 

 tonous regularity. Nor would it appear that the lack 

 of natural attraction has been compensated for by the 

 art of man, the mouldering ruins, which are in keeping 

 everywhere with the forlorn aspect of the scene, bear- 

 ing eloquent testimony to the wild depredations of 

 Kurd and Arab, who from the days of their first con- 

 tact seem to have regarded the plains of northern 

 Mesopotamia as a legitimate stage for the enactment 

 of a drama of wholesale bloodshed and destruction. 

 Indeed, Ibrahim Pasha, on the west, and, until his 

 recent violent death, Mustapha Pasha, on the east, 

 might well congratulate themselves on being far from 

 unworthy recipients of the mantle of Timur, who five 

 centuries earlier stamped upon this self-same district 

 an indelible trail of desolation — inevitable legacy of 

 his victorious progress through Asia. 



On such a line no places of importance will be found. 

 Harran, the ancient city of Nahor, to which Abraham 

 migrated from Ur of the Chaldees, consists now of a 

 low range of mounds on either side of the river Belik, 

 whose chief object of interest is, probably, the far- 

 famed well of Pebecca. Pas-el-Ain is only a small 

 village, and Nissibin a moderate mud town. No 

 advantage, then, for this route can be claimed on the 

 grounds of its passing through any large centres of 

 trade, all of which — Marash, Aintab, Birejik, Urfa, 

 Diarbekr, Mardin — lie far to the north, and the whole 

 advantage which it ofi'ers is summed up in directness of 



