Travels in Arabia and Along Persian Gulf 



L 45 



Photo by Fairchild 



In the Suburbs of Bagdad, showing the Mud Houses and Date Palms 



heard much of this apparently almost 

 level plain of Mesopotamia, five days' 

 journey through it could not but con- 

 vince, me of its vast extent. Stretching 

 on all sides to the horizon was the 

 almost treeless desert only a few feet 

 above the level of the river. The soil, 

 though variable with regard to the 

 amount of alkali it contains, is as fine 

 as the Nile silt, and not a stone or rock 

 as large as a man's fist was seen. It is 

 from this adobe clay that the Babylon- 

 ians made the remarkable bricks upon 

 which have been handed down to us in 

 the cuneiform language the records of 

 butcher and tailor bills of six thousand 

 years ago. Running almost parallel, 

 but not in sight of the river itself, are 

 the ruins of the ancient Nahrwan canal, 

 which recent investigations have shown 

 irrigated at one time immense areas of 

 this now desert waste. Sir Wm. Will- 



cocks has shown that the destruction of 

 this canal by the Tigris, in its gradually 

 changing course across the delta, was 

 perhaps the most potent factor in the 

 downfall of the land of Babylon, and it 

 is interesting to read his estimates, from 

 the standpoint of his long Egyptian ex- 

 perience, of the necessary expenditure 

 to rebuild and extend this old canal and 

 bring under cultivation millions of acres 

 of unutilized rich river silt. 



Bagdad is so connected with the story 

 of the "Arabian Nights" that even 

 though its tumble-down houses and nar- 

 row streets would be disappointing in 

 the extreme to any one looking for 

 the Oriental splendor of those days of 

 Haroun-al-Raschid, it is nevertheless so 

 filled with curious sights and is so un- 

 affected by the civilization of Europe 

 that it can not fail to appeal to one in 

 search of novel sensations. Its mosques, 



