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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



back a sob that was springing to his 

 lips. For some time I could not turn my 

 head. I had forgotten the others. I could 

 not understand the words of the singer, 

 but the music wrenched my heart. I 

 turned to Woolley and asked what the 

 man was singing. It was the lament of 

 a Kurdish woman whose husband, Said 

 Ahmed, the greatest of warriors, had 

 been brought home dead. I understood 

 the sorrow of the song, its harrowing 

 complaint against an unkind Fate. 



REV£NG£ S£T TO KURDISH MUSIC 



Then, in an instant, the music changed. 

 The notes were the same ; the rhythm was 

 unaltered. The singer was as still as if 

 he were carved out of rock, but the soul- 

 stirring complaint of the bereaved wife 

 at the death of her loved one was chang- 

 ing to the cunning, low, tense song of a 

 Jael at the side of Sisera. Revenge was 

 taking the place of despair. Hatred was 

 blotting out womanly love. The funeral 

 chant was fast becoming a battle-song, in 

 which the hatred of a race was stirring- 

 murder in the hearts of her hearers. This 

 woman, after kneeling by the side of her 

 husband's dead body, had raised herself 

 to a proud height, and with outflung arms 

 like Davidson's "France" was praying 

 that his tribe would avenge her husband's 

 death. A Fury, with ghastly face and 

 disordered hair, was hurling Death back 

 upon itself, was already sucking sweet- 

 ness from the thought of pillage and 

 bloodshed. A note of victory crept into 

 the awful chant. Then Deborah's song 

 of conquest and thankfulness burst 

 forth — cruel, menacing, exultant. 



In a moment it was over. Only the 

 sin-ill sound of the pipes remained. The 

 woman, having seen her tribe depart on 

 its mission of revenge, was once more at 



the side of her loved one, whose cold lips 

 would not respond to her long, passionate 

 kiss. 



WHERD THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CROSSES 

 THE MESOPOTAMIAN RUBICON 



Just south of the Hittite ruins at Car- 

 chemish the Bagdad Railway crosses the 

 muddy Euphrates and enters Mesopota- 

 mia. For the present the line to Bagdad 

 and the Persian Gulf will monopolize the 

 attention of the road-builders ; but slowly 

 and surely the iron pathways of com- 

 merce will extend north to the copper 

 fields of Asia Minor and the rich plains 

 where Turkish tobacco is grown, up 

 through Armenia to the Caucasus, across 

 Persia to Turkestan, and across Afghan- 

 istan or Baluchistan to the gates of India. 



Through communication with central 

 Asia may rob the wharf at Beirut of 

 many colorful groups of Mecca pilgrims 

 from both Turkestans, and soon even the 

 Peking Mohammedan may take a pil- 

 grimage to Mecca by rail ; but this im- 

 provement of communication will induce 

 stability and make less likely another de- 

 structive migration by the free-ranging 

 Central Asian nomads, who are an 

 anachronism in a crowded world. 



War may not be entirely a thing of the 

 past, but the Syrian and Mesopotamian 

 routes are essential to the commercial and 

 industrial development of Europe and the 

 cultural development of Asia. While 

 wars may come and while Syria is 

 sure to be deeply affected by every con- 

 flict in which European or Asiatic na- 

 tions are involved, the downfall of Turk- 

 ish control in this region is likely to do 

 away with such disastrous street fighting 

 as has for centuries discouraged traffic 

 along the world's greatest historic high- 

 wav. 



YOUR NEW MAP OF EUROPE WHEN THE BOUNDARIES ARE DEFINITELY 



ANNOUNCED 



The National Geographic Society's New Map of Europe, which has been in preparation for two 

 years, will be issued as a supplement to the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE immediately 

 following the official announcement of the boundaries of the new nations created by the Paris Peace 

 Conference. As any map issued prior to this official announcement must necessarily be of only tem- 

 porary worth, the Society has deferred the publication of its map in order that its members may have 

 a work both authoritative and of permanent value. The map, in colors, and drawn on a generous scale, 

 will show the boundaries of the nations as they existed before the World War as well as the new 

 boundaries now being established by the Peace Commissioners. 



