172 Bcdoiiiu Tribes of the Btiphrates.iQw.-s.^iu. 



a single gateway, and the houses inside l^uilt equally 

 of mud are low and flat roofed. They may contain 

 populations of from two hundred to five hundred 

 persons each, and are the most wretched places that 

 can well be conceived. The neio^hbourhood of a 

 desert village is always bare and pastureless, having' 

 been trodden down and grazed over mercilessly for 

 generations. The principal of these are Karyeteyn 

 and Tudmur, west of the Euphrates, and the 

 Sin jar villao-es east of it. I have marked their 

 positions on my map as Stanford gives them, for 

 his geography is fairly accurate. The Upper 

 Desert with the hills contains in all about a dozen 

 of these small places, and the Sinjar country as 

 many more. 



On the rivers there is the same diversity of ap- 

 pearance between the villages of the north and those 

 of the south. The latter surrounded with date- 

 palms have a prosperous, the former drag on a miser- 

 able existence. The reason of this may be found 

 in the fact that the Bedouin seldom or never inter- 

 feres with date cultivation. The land occupied by 

 palm groves is unsuitable for pasturage, and he does 

 not grudge it to its owners, whereas the open fields 

 of wheat and barley are a continual temptation for 

 his flocks. Thus it is that while Ana and the palm 

 villages have only suflered from loss of trade, the 

 towns of the Upper Euphrates have been utterly 

 ruined. North of latitude 34° the rich valley of the- 

 Euphrates can boast no more than half-a-dozen 



