i3i [December, 1912. 



THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 



Somewhere in Arabia. 



The Geographical Journal for August, 1912, reports alecture delivered by 

 Sir William Willcocks, k.c.m.g., before the Royal Geographical Society 

 on June 10, 1912. Lecturing in November, 1909, in this hall, on " Meso- 

 potamia, past, present and future," he said:— I placed the Garden of Eden 

 of our Bible on the upper Euphrates bewoen Anah and Hit. Heie must 

 have been thefirst civilized settlement of the Semites, the ancestors of the 

 children of Israel, as they moved down from the north-west. And it may 

 interest some to know that in the latitude of this region, not far from 

 Damascus, wild wheat plants have within recent years been discovered. 

 The wearing down of the cataracts deprived the settlers of the waters of 

 the friendly river which had watered their garden, and they travelled 

 eastwards and could see behind them nothing but the bitumen springs on 

 the east of Eden, which seemed to them like flaming swords in the hands 

 of the offended seraphim. Like all early peoples they called themselves 

 the sons of men who had already conquered the Tigris-Euphrates delta, 

 and among whom had settled those of their sons whose hands were stained 

 with blood and who could no longer be permitted to reside in the tents 

 of their tribe. 



As these people understood nature, the river by itself could not begin 

 life until its waters had mingled with those of the sea, and from their 

 union under the action of the flux and reflux of the tides sprung the 

 marshes where life began on earth. As a matter of fact, salt water never 

 reaches the marshes owing to the delta of che Karan lying between them 

 and the sea. 



The effect of the 10-foot tide in the gulf is communicated to the rivers, 

 and travels up nearly 100 miles, but no salt water sets into the marshes. 

 To the writers of these very early epics the Deep was a fresh- water deep. 



With translations of the Babylonian tablets of creation in my hand, 

 and the plans and levels of the country before me, I have endeavoured, 

 on the spot, to give local colour to the passages describing the Garden of 

 Eden of Sumer and Akkad. After some thousands of yeais, the Euph- 

 rates in these reaches is again traversing wide marshes . For some 70 

 miles in length the river has left its old channel and, flowing over a flat 

 plain some 12 miles wide, is covering it with 2 or 3 feet of water. I have 

 seen Arabs taking reeds and earth and throwing up well-protected banks 

 in the time of low supply and so enclosing areas of land for cultivation 

 and habitation, which will be safe from the attacks of the Euphrates. 



The Virile Babylonian 



When human beings first appeared on the earth and for many a 

 generation afterwards, men could only have just held their own against 

 wild animals and, while their dwelling-places were surrounded by forests 

 and jungles, the unending struggle must have left them but little time 

 to make any real advance in civilization. It was far different in oases 

 of Arabia and practical oases like Anah and Hit on the upper 

 Euphrates. Here it was possible for men to destroy the existing 

 wild beasts and as their numbers could not be recruited out of the 

 deserts, they were exterminated ; and men had leisure to become 



