fir 



© Underwood & Underwood 

 IRRIGATION ON THE EUPHRATES, WHERE MEN HAVE TOILED SINCE ADAM EEFT EDEN 



The science of irrigation was developed on the banks of this river many thousands of 

 years ago. Babylonia was then one vast network of canals. Around the whole country 

 spread a Chinese wall inverted, a great moat, water-filled, at once to keep out the alien 

 stranger and to fill up the network of canals. At the same time these larger canals furnished 

 natural highways of commerce, and thousands of boats plied their waters. One of them 

 left the Euphrates from the right bank near Hit and skirted the plain all the way to the 

 Persian Gulf. The work was so well done that even the debris of thirty centuries has not 

 been able to obliterate it. No one can say how long ago it was built, but we do know that 

 it was ancient in the days of Nebuchadnezzar — so ancient that he "pointed with pride" to 

 the fact that he had cleaned it out once more and restored it. Not a hundredth part of 

 what is still left visible of the ruined irrigation works is in use today. Where once as fine 

 crops as ever grew nourished in luxuriance, there is desert and marsh and the silent mounds 

 of entombed cities. 



133 



