Volume Ii Part 13 (2/2)

This line pa.s.ses through one town of eighty thousand inhabitants, Aleppo, and two small towns, Deyr and Ana, besides a few villages. It could count on very little local traffic; Deyr might export a little corn, Ana a few dates. Except in the northern portion it is not a sheep district.

It has the advantages of water and fuel, but these would be to a certain extent neutralised if, as is probable, the line should have to pa.s.s along the desert above, instead of in the valley. In either case the construction would not be without expense, the river with its inundations causing constant obstruction below; while the desert above, is much broken with ravines. It could hardly pay the whole of its working expenses. Its princ.i.p.al advantage is, that in case of its being continued from Seglawieh to Bussorah, some miles would be saved, or a branch line might be made to Kerbela. The Euphrates line is strategically of advantage to Turkey, mainly as a check on the Bedouin tribes.

3.-_The Mesopotamian or Tigris Valley Route_, 700 miles.

Miles.

Alexandretta or Lattakia to Aleppo, cultivation 100 Aleppo to Orfa, cultivation 120 Orfa to Mosul, by Mardin, partial cultivation 250 Mosul to Bagdad by the right bank of the Tigris, pastoral 230 Total cultivated and partly cultivated 470 ,, pastoral 230 Total 700

This line has the advantage of pa.s.sing through no absolutely desert district. It would be well watered throughout, and in the Tigris Valley would have a supply of fuel. It would, as far as Mosul, serve four large towns with an aggregate population of two hundred thousand inhabitants, besides numerous villages, and a nearly continuous agricultural population. Its stations would serve as depots for the produce of Upper Syria, Armenia, and Kurdistan from the north, and of a fairly prosperous pastoral district from the south. Below Mosul, however, there would be but two small towns, Samara, and Tekrit, and hardly a village. The engineering difficulties of this route, in spite of several small rivers besides the Euphrates (which all three lines would have to cross), would probably be less than in the others. Upper Mesopotamia is a more even plain than the Syrian Desert, and southwards is but little intersected with ravines. This route is strategically of immense importance to Turkey, and is perhaps the best. I would, however, suggest, that commercially, a better line would be from Mosul by Kerkuk to Bagdad.

This would continue through cultivated lands, and is the route recommended by the very intelligent Polish engineer, who surveyed it some years ago.

Beyond Bagdad the routes to the Persian Gulf would be-

1. Bagdad to Queyt by right bank of Euphrates, serving Kerbela, Meshhed Ali, and the district of Suk-esh-s.h.i.+okh (460 miles) or to Bussorah (400 miles).

This could be continued from Seglawieh, thereby saving fifty miles. It would serve two fairly flouris.h.i.+ng agricultural districts, and should pa.s.s along the edge of the desert where the ground is nearly level.

Queyt is a good port as to anchorage, but has no commercial importance.

Bussorah is a river port much circ.u.mscribed by marshes.

2. Bagdad to Mohamra by the left bank of the Tigris (320 miles).

This would be a difficult line to make, on account of the marshes, and would pa.s.s through a nearly uninhabited country. It has no advantage but its shortness.

3. Bagdad to Bus.h.i.+re, along the edge of the Hamrin Hills to Dizful, then by Shustar, Ram Hormuz, and Dilam (570 miles).

This line would be an expensive one, on account of the six large rivers it would have to cross, but it presents no other engineering difficulties. It should keep close under the Hamrin Hills to avoid marshy ground near the river. It is uninhabited as far as Dizful, though the soil is good and well watered. Dizful and Shustar are important commercial towns, being the princ.i.p.al markets of South Western Persia; the district between them is well cultivated. Beyond Shustar to Dilam there is but one inhabited place, Ram Hormuz (or Ramuz). There are a few villages along the sh.o.r.e of the Persian Gulf to Bus.h.i.+re, but very little cultivation. This route might be shortened by taking a direct line from Ali Ghurbi on the Tigris to Dilam, but it would then pa.s.s wholly through uninhabited country, swampy in places. On the whole I prefer the Dizful-Shustar route, as having better commercial prospects. These towns would supply no little traffic. Bus.h.i.+re is an important place, and would make the best terminus for a railway on the Gulf. I cannot, however, recommend any of these lines south of Bagdad as commercially promising for a railway.

W. S. B.

[Picture: Rock inscriptions and drawings in Jebel Shammar]

FOOTNOTES.

{7} Abbas Pasha's Seglawieh is reported to have had two foals while in Egypt; one of them died, and the other was given to the late King of Italy, and left descendants, now in the possession of the present king.

{34} We measured one, a pollard, thirty-six feet round the trunk at five feet from the ground.

{41} Ra.s.sam, who has been digging at Babylon, informs me that these inscriptions are in the ancient Phnician character. It would seem that the Phnicians, who were a nation of shopkeepers, were in the habit of sending out commercial travellers with samples of goods all over Asia; and wherever they stopped on the road, if there was a convenient bit of soft rock, they scratched their names on it, and drew pictures of animals. The explanation may be the true one, but how does it come that these tradesmen should choose purely desert subjects for their artistic efforts-camels, ostriches, ibexes, and hors.e.m.e.n with lances. I should have fancied rather that these were the work of Arabs, or of whoever represented the Arabs, in days gone by, anyhow of people living in the country. But I am no archaeologist.

{50} It was to Taybetism that Abdallah ibn Saoud fled ten years ago when he was driven by his brother out of Aared, and from it that he sent that treacherous message to Midhat Pasha at Bagdad which brought the Turks into Hasa and broke up the Wahhabi Empire.

{57} Red is said to be the female and green the male, but some say all are green at first and become red afterwards.

{59} Compare Mr. Palgrave's account.

{63} Compare Fatalla's account of the war between the Mesenneh and the Dafir near Tudmor at the beginning of the present century.

{65} Belkis is the name usually given by tradition to the Queen of Sheba.

{67} I have since been told by dentists that the fact of a third set of teeth being cut in old age is not unknown to science.

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