WHERE ADAM AND EVE LIVED 



By Frederick and Margaret Simpich 



BAGDAD ! What a magic word to 

 conjure with ! How it hints at ro- 

 mance, adventure, intrigue ! No 

 place in all the ancient East stood out so 

 splendidly. No tales can compare with 

 the "Arabian Nights," the old tales of 

 Bagdad. From childhood the name of 

 the mystic city and its famous Caliph, 

 Harun-al-Rashid, have been familiar 

 words to us all. 



But how many Americans know just 

 where Bagdad really is or how important 

 it has lately become? 



When word came that I must go to 

 Bagdad I lost days getting "routed," as 

 the tourist agents call it. A through 

 ticket from America to Bagdad is hard 

 to buy. It is much easier to be routed 

 all the way round the world — along the 

 beaten trail. Even on the Atlantic 

 steamer the word "Bagdad" stamped on 

 my ticket seemed to confuse folks. When 

 the purser read it he scowled and was 

 puzzled ; later I heard him tell a boy — 

 in low tones — to bring an atlas. He was 

 brushing up on geography, locating Bag- 

 dad (see map on another page). 



The road to Bagdad, you will admit, 

 is devious and long. My ticket was good 

 for one continuous ride from New York 

 to Egypt, over Pharaoh's bones in the 

 Red Sea, past Cain's tomb at sun- 

 scorched Aden, to Colombo, Bombay, 

 Karachee, Maskat, old pirate haunt and 

 ancient stronghold of Albuquerque, the 

 Portuguese ; thence up the boiling Persian 

 Gulf, past Sinbad's treasure island of 

 Hormuz, to Busra, the "Balsora" of the 

 "Arabian Nights ;" and, lastly, 500 miles 

 up the winding Tigris, past the reputed 

 tomb of the prophet Ezra — shrine of 

 Jewish hordes — to Bagdad ! Seventeen 

 thousand miles from San Francisco, my 

 starting point ; five changes of ships, two 

 months of travel !* 



* Europeans going to Bagdad sometimes 

 travel by rail to Aleppo, and from there make 

 a three-weeks' caravan journey over the desert 

 to Bagdad ; but disturbances among the Bed- 

 ouins often render this route very dangerous ; 

 the journey is also possible only during the 

 cooler months. Most travelers reach ^agdad 

 via Suez, Bombay, etc. 



here;, thi;n, is bagdad 



Here, then, is Bagdad — in Turkish 

 Arabia, near the Persian frontier, hard 

 by old Eden, man's birthplace. Here on 

 the classic soil of Babylon, Nineveh, and 

 Opis once flourished the pick of the hu- 

 man race; here was the center of the 

 world's wealth, power, and civilization. 

 And back to this ancient region modern 

 men are turning, to reclaim its lost areas, 

 open its mines and oil deposits — ^to re- 

 store the Garden of Eden ! 



From the deck of a Tigris steamer 

 Bagdad looms up boldly, its splendid sky- 

 line of domes and minarets reminding 

 one of some "Midway" of World's Fair 

 memory. An odd pontoon bridge con- 

 nects the two parts of the city, separated 

 by the yellow Tigris. On the west bank 

 is the old town, inclosed by date and 

 orange groves. From here the new Bag- 

 dad-Aleppo Railway will start on its long 

 run across the trackless desert. East of 

 the river, on the Persian side, is "new" 

 Bagdad, with its government offices, bar- 

 racks, consulates, prisons, etc. Here, too, 

 is the great government factory, where 

 uniforms, blankets, turbans, and other 

 soldiers' supplies are made. 



Beyond, as far as the eye can reach in, 

 every direction, stretches the vast, flat, 

 treeless, empty plain of Mesopotamia — 

 a region once more populous than Bel- 

 gium. 



THE GOOFAH AND THE KEEEK 



I was paddled ashore from the steamer 

 in a "goofah," a queer, coracle-like craft 

 in use here since Jonah's day. A goofah 

 is woven from willows about 6 feet in 

 diameter, is perfectly circular and bas- 

 ket-shaped, and is coated outside with 

 bitumen. Some say Moses was cut adrift 

 in one of these goofahs (see page 549). 



Another strange craft at Bagdad is the 

 "kelek," a Kurdish invention. The kelek 

 is a raft made of inflated goatskins, held 

 together by poles and covered with a 

 platform of straw mats. These keleks 

 come down to Bagdad in hundreds from 

 Mosul, bringing wool, pottery, grain, and 

 skins (seepage 548). 



546 



