SYRIA: THE LAND UXK OF HISTORY'S CHAIN 



443 



But, while the world ignored her and 

 the Turk plundered her, Syria knew that 

 her day of glory was sure to come. East 

 and West called to each other across the 

 land link of history's chain and the Ger- 

 mans started the railway that was as in- 

 evitable as fate, following as it does the 

 greatest trade route the world has ever 

 known. How Germany overreached her- 

 self and how her dream of Pan-German- 

 ism, built around this railway, was finally 

 smashed in the Argonne and on the field 

 of Armageddon is now familiar to all. 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL DILEMMA OE A VALLEY 

 PLATEAU 



Various factors delayed the inevitable 

 reopening of the historic trade route 

 across Syria and Mesopotamia. The ad- 

 vance of the Turk threw Europe back 

 upon itself to develop internally, and the 

 discovery of America turned the attention 

 of its peoples away from the spices and 

 wealth of the East to the boundless re- 

 sources and rich prizes of the West. The 

 discovery of the sea route around Africa 

 made available a safer passage to opulent 

 India. 



Mesopotamia is as fertile today as 

 when it was the birthplace of human 

 history and when the civilization that 

 developed there had only the Nile Valley 

 as a competitive field. But, like many 

 parts of the earth once populous and now 

 almost deserted, Mesopotamia is no half- 

 way land. Such regions must either be 

 the uncultivated roaming places of no- 

 madic tribes or the seats of settled gov- 

 ernment and a centralized state. The 

 inhabitants must either be few enough 

 and mobile enough to seek through mi- 

 grations the food upon which their flocks 

 depend or stable enough to keep in repair 

 vast irrigation systems which cause heavy 

 crops to follow one another with assuring 

 regularity. 



Good government and the nomad are 

 mutual enemies. Each has its day in dis- 

 tricts whose poverty or prosperity de- 

 pends upon whether water, which the 

 abundant crops of the most fertile valleys 

 must have, is utilized or goes to waste. 



GEOGRAPHY COQUETTE AND DICTATOR 



The Greeks were coaxed to become 

 navigators by the thickly scattered is- 



lands — stepping-stones to Empire — which 

 tempted them, as the flowers of the field 

 tempted Proserpina, farther and farther 

 away. The Phoenicians were forced to 

 sea by the inhospitable slopes of an 

 unkroken mountain chain, but there 

 stretched along the sea the strikingly fer- 

 tile plain which to this day constitutes the 

 garden land of Syria. 



This rich plain made possible great 

 fortunes, and Tyrian purple, obtained 

 from the murex, became the badge of 

 Phoenician aristocracy. As successive 

 fields of this shell-fish became exhausted 

 by the demands of fashion, the murex 

 hunters, like the fur trappers of the 

 frozen north, were driven farther and 

 farther afield in search of the rare color 

 which fashion decreed. 



The tradition for travel which began 

 in Phoenicia has come down to the Leba- 

 non throughout the centuries, and when 

 the massacre of i860 occurred, Syrians 

 from the persecuted land fled to America, 

 where more than 400,000 are now resid- 



FORGETTING BVGOXES IN A VISION OE 



EUTURE GREATXESS 



For them the future seemed to lie be- 

 neath the setting sun. But Syria is in 

 Asia and its life will be wrapped up with 

 the East of which it is a part. 



Soon heavy trains, fired with oil from 

 the Persian fields, will thunder along- 

 trade routes which plodding camels 

 marked out when the world was young. 

 Already, one may dine in Cairo and have 

 luncheon the following day in Jerusalem. 

 The step to Aleppo, Mosul, and Bagdad 

 is short and all but 300 miles of the line 

 is now open to traffic. However popular 

 the route through central Europe along 

 the famous Berlin-to-Bagdad line be- 

 comes, the safety of the British Empire 

 demands that the railroad which follows 

 the old line of communication between 

 the valley of the Nile and the valleys of 

 the Euphrates and the Tigris shall be 

 kept in a state of perfection. There will 

 be no Amanus or Taurus tunnels on this 

 trail of the modern caravan, and an ab- 

 sence of heavy grades throughout a large 

 part of the right of way will make it pos- 



