CHAPTER XVI

THE GRAVES OF DEAD EMPIRES

(MOSUL TO BAGHDAD)

The road from Amadia to Mosul is tolerably easy, by comparison, as the successive ranges sink gradually toward the Mesopotamian level. We had timed our journey craftily; it being now fairly hot in the lowlands; for we wished the moon to be full on the night that we emerged from the mountains, so that we might travel by her light across the plain to Mosul. A journey by day across the Mosul plain is not to be undertaken too lightly in summer, when the thermometer registers 120° in the shade. By night it is comfortable enough, and the moon makes the journey easy; though we own that it is very sleepy work at times. On this occasion the writer accomplished a feat that had previously been always beyond him, viz. that of sleeping in the saddle as the horse walked on. The nap can hardly have been a long one, but he achieved a real dream, and it was not terminated by a collapse into the dust.

By day, the heat is very trying, and there is a real danger occasionally in that strange phenomenon the "_Sâm_." This is apparently a very small whirlwind, akin to those which cause the "dust-devils" common enough in the land at all times, but composed of intensely heated air, flavoured often with sulphurous fumes. A man struck by it simply collapses, and unless prompt attendance can be given him he dies in a few minutes. The face is "blackened," and decomposition sets in very speedily. The natives not unnaturally refer to it as a "Poison wind."

The phenomenon wanders about in the freakish fashion that we associate with the American tornadoes, though it never is dangerous, like them, from its mere pace and power. It will take one man out of a straggling party, or even a man on horse-back, while leaving his horse and his companion on foot unscathed.

A British Consul has told the writer how on one occasion, turning to speak to his kavass who was riding a few yards behind him, he suddenly felt the hot blast and smelt the sulphurous fumes; while the kavass collapsed, and fell from his horse as if he had been shot. Prompt attention and stimulants revived the sufferer on that occasion, but it was a narrow escape. Had he been alone he would have died past question.

Nobody seems to have investigated the matter scientifically, or to have compared it with like phenomena in other lands (such as Scinde for instance) where conditions are similar. It is really not surprising that the natives should put down the effect to a blow from a malignant "Jinn," though one suspects that as a matter of fact the explanation is this. Sudden contact with the heated, sulphur-laden blast of the little whirlwind just "tips the balance," and induces a stroke of heat-apoplexy in cases where the victim is already verging on that condition. Possibly the _Sâm_ is a last legacy of the now quiescent volcanoes; for similar sulphurous eddies, of a far less violent description, were playing about the surface of the sea off the Riviera coastline for some time after the great earthquake at San Remo in 1887.

In Mosul the hospitable Consulate received us once more, while the _keleg_ that was to take us down the Tigris to Baghdad was in process of construction. A _keleg_ is probably one of the most ancient types of river craft in the world, and is built in this wise. First, a frame of light poles, much like hop-poles, is tied fairly firmly together with cord. This may be of any size, but a fair-sized one for a small party is perhaps twelve feet square. Next a number of sheep-skins, each taken from the animal with the minimum of cutting, and with all apertures firmly tied up, are fastened beneath that frame. A _keleg_ of the size named requires about 100 skins. These are inflated by the lungs of the _kelegji_, through a reed inserted into one of the legs of the skin; and the legs also form convenient points for attachment to the frame. Finally a few heavy logs, usually poplar or walnut trunks sawn in half, are placed side by side on the frame, so as to form a rough floor, and the craft is complete in all essentials. In our own particular case some further arrangements were made for comfort. A portion of the "deck" was properly floored with boards, and this portion covered with a hut made of reed mats on a light frame, large enough to contain a bed easily, and to serve as living-room during the day.

Such a craft is as buoyant as well can be; this one carrying six men with ease, beside a fair amount of luggage. Its method of progress is simply to drift down the fairly rapid current of the Tigris as far as is required. On reaching the destination, all the wood is sold for what it will fetch to the timber merchants, while the skins are deflated and packed on a donkey for transport up the river, for there is no means of towing the craft back against the stream. A pair of clumsy oars do what steering is necessary, and keep the vessel in the main current.

A raft voyage is probably the most absolutely restful mode of travel known, if only the wanderer is in no hurry to reach his destination; and that of course no genuine traveller ever ought to be. You go on, never hasting, never halting (unless a strong wind happens to pin you to one bank for a while), and the river must get you to your destination at the last. As to dates there is a pleasing uncertainty; but we may say that from Mosul to Baghdad the quickest voyage ever known was two days and a half, and the longest fourteen.

Naturally, you provision your craft for the voyage before starting, getting all that you desire in Mosul; and it may be noted here that for cooking purposes the writer has found nothing better than a "Primus" stove. Ports of call where you can reprovision are not numerous, but they do exist.

For one desiring a rest-cure the method may be recommended confidently. You lie on your camp bed under the shade of your grass hut, watching the shore slide past your sleepy eyes. If the heat grows too great, your servant dashes water over the grass matting, and you are cool. Is fruit your desire? He emits a doleful howl, which is answered from the bank, and presently a nude cultivator turns up alongside, buoyed up on the inflated skin on which he has swum out, and towing a large melon from one of the gardens that line the river, which conveniently floats just awash. Is a bath desirable? You strip and slide off the edge of your _keleg_, taking a sheep-skin to act as buoy, or pillow if you like. You swim for as long as you feel inclined, or drift down while the craft keeps pace with you. You are in the land of the lotus eaters on a _keleg_ voyage--but you had better take a few books to read!

Altogether the writer fully sympathizes with the feeling of a Chaldæan bishop, who was scandalized at discovering that a certain Dominican Father held himself excused from observing Lent during a voyage of this kind "because he was on a journey." "Why, good gracious," said his lordship, "he might as well claim exemption from fasting in Paradise!"

It must be owned that there is not much in the way of scenery in this portion of the river. If you want that, you must go to the upper reaches of the Tigris, and travel from Diarbekr down to Mosul, threading the great gorges _en route_.[151] There you will get magnificence, and it may be excitement too; for there are rapids in the defile, and _kelegs_ have been known to be wrecked in them. Mesopotamia does not give you mountains. Still, there is one stretch of fair scenery (though not a gorge to be compared with the canons of Tyari), where the "Jebel Makdul" crosses the river, and a fine stretch of dull red cliff, relieved by a wide streak of grey alabaster, lines the bank for some miles. Here stands a fine old stronghold, much resembling one of the Rhine castles, the "Kalat-el-Bint," or Maiden Castle. Shortly after, you pass a sulphur spring, which is not an uncommon thing in the land; still, it is not often that you find one so odoriferous as to awake the peaceful slumberer in mid-stream!

Somewhat lower, the lesser Zab joins the Tigris, descending from a city that we visited at one period of our wanderings in the land, and of which we include a picture.

This is Kirkuk, a town which contains, in its present name, one of the few memorials of the old Seleucid rulers. It is a contraction of "Karka d'Bait Seluk," the "Citadel of the house of Seleucus." As a city, it is far older than the kingdoms of Alexander's successors, for it stands on one of the largest and most ancient of "tels"; and the traveller may "acquire merit" by visiting the mosque where are the tombs of Shadrach and Abednego. Meshach, the guide will tell you, is there too, but the site of his grave has unfortunately been forgotten.

The mosque of the picture, however, is not that of the tombs, but the _tekke_, or hermitage where dwelt the most famous character of modern Kirkuk. This was a Kurdish Sheikh of such surpassing sanctity and zeal for Islam, that Abdul Hamid used to correspond with him in a private cipher; and was accustomed to ask by telegraph for his prayers, whenever he was meditating anything exceptionally black.

Normally, the banks of the river are high, or at least appear so in autumn. No doubt the river is often bank full in springtime when the snows are melting, and its pace is then materially faster. Generally the only feature on the shores are the primitive irrigating machines, the "_sakkiyehs_," a type that cannot have altered very much since the days of Abraham. They consist of nothing but pits sunk in the high bank down to water-level, and communicating with the stream, so that there is always water in them. A skin bucket is lowered into the pit and dragged up again by a cord passing over a pulley; and an ox walking to and fro on an inclined plane supplies the motive power.

Two or three days below Mosul the river passes by one point of great interest; the mounds of Kala Shargat, once Assur, the sacred city of Assyria. These are now being excavated and examined thoroughly by German savants of the Deutsche Orientalische Gesellschaft. As seen from a little distance, the place has no very exciting appearance. It rather resembles a group of exaggerated sandhills, rising at one point into a blunt pyramid, the "_Ziggurat_." In spring the plain is covered with flowers, but all these have vanished long before autumn, and the colour of the whole is that of pale brown paper; the only scrap of green being the rather discouraged-looking garden at the side of the house occupied by the excavating staff.

Here hospitable and kindly gentlemen receive the traveller most warmly, and we have the opportunity of seeing German perseverance at work on a most congenial task. Their method is undeniably thorough, and suggests unlimited resources. You have a set of mounds before you, covering perhaps twenty acres or more, and rising to a height of about eighty feet. A light railway is laid down, running well out into the desert; and the whole of those mounds, or something like it, goes through a fine sieve, and is carried off into the wilderness and dumped. When a pavement is reached in this process, that level is cleared absolutely, and everything worth preserving is preserved, with careful plans showing the position in which it was found. Then that pavement is broken up, and progress made to the next level; and so the work is continued till virgin soil is reached.

Assur, it would seem, was a shrine long before "Assyria went out of Babylon and builded Nineveh." There are unmistakable signs of a Hittite occupation before them. It was news to the writer that this people had ever penetrated so far to the east and south. When the place fell into Assyrian hands it became their great sacred city; so that almost every king of whom there is record seems to have felt bound to leave there some mark of his reign. Even the latest of the line, Sinsariskun, who ruled for a few weeks only before the Medes stormed Nineveh, and who perished in the flames of his palace, has done some building here. Hence there is a series of at least seven temples on the site; though in each case the lines of the original foundation were faithfully followed, and are preserved above ground now in the Arabian "_kala_" which occupies the ground. This "_kala_," by the way, cost considerable trouble to the excavators. Occupying the site it did, it had to come down if the most important portion of the work was not to go undone; but it was a terrible business to secure that result. The wretched place figured in formal reports as a complete modern fortress of the highest strategical importance; and permission to dismantle it was only given at last on condition of rebuilding it afterwards, exactly as it was before. As this cost something under £100, an inference may be drawn as to the character of the "fort."

The temple is of the ordinary "Semitic" type, and so follows the same general plan as Solomon's at Jerusalem, and the larger one at Baalbek. That is to say, there was an inner shrine, or _cella_, into which normally none could enter, and a _naos_ before it corresponding to the "holy place" at Jerusalem. Outside the temple was a series of "concentric" courts, of irregular shape, and probably varying degrees of sanctity, each one lower in level than the one within it. One of these contained the great altar for sacrifice, and the tank for ablutions. The altar was approached (again as at Jerusalem) by a sloping ramp and not by steps. "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto Mine altar"--a device probably meant to facilitate the leading up of the sacrificial beasts. The whole is of mud brick; stone, or even burnt brick being only used for ornament; and the tank mentioned was made watertight by a thick lining of asphalt, still _in situ_. If the temple has not yielded any such sculptures as have been found in the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad, many minor _antikas_ have come to light there; and perhaps the most interesting was a fine model of a flash of lightning, in gold, and about a metre in length. This was no doubt the _ex voto_ offering of some great man in old days, but no inscription was found to explain it. Its discovery caused great excitement in Turkish official circles, report having necessarily been sent by the Ottoman commissioner who is supposed to superintend the excavation. Stories circulated of the finding of a "great treasure of gold"; which was, of course, exactly what most people believed the Franks to have been digging for all along. Accordingly two regiments were dispatched to the place, one from Mosul and one from Baghdad, to receive the treasure and escort it duly to some Government headquarters. Naturally, no difficulty was made about the surrender; for the Germans were under pledge to put all articles that they found in the Museum at Constantinople, and had not the least intention of breaking their word. One wonders, however, by how much the cost of moving say, 1200 men for ten days' march, exceeded the intrinsic value of a thin strip of gold, about thirty-eight inches long!

The temple of Assur and the king's palace there form, as is usual, a sort of royal quarter of the city, and stand together at one edge of the great mound. They look out over the plain to the "summer temple," whither the images of the gods were solemnly conveyed every year, when the heat became too much for their comfort in their regular residence. This was a great portico or enclosed garden rather than a temple, and was apparently stone built, which is a rarity in this land.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the excavations, after the great temple itself, is what the excavators call "the Oriental Pompeii." This is the old town, of date similar to the palace; and therefore going back to about 1000 B.C., though it was inhabited long after the fall of the Assyrian Empire. It is interesting to see how, in every detail of the planning of the houses, the arrangements common in Mosul to-day reproduce this early period. Perhaps the streets in the older city are rather better paved and drained than in the modern one, but that is almost the only difference. We will allow, however, that some progress has been made in such a matter as the disposal of the bodies of the dead. Good folk in Mosul are more than a little casual about this as it is; but they do have graveyards. Their ancestors in Assur put the dead under the floors of the living rooms, and often with scarce six inches between the top of the great pot that served as coffin and the level of the room. They may, as suggested, have sealed up that particular room of the house; yet even so----!

Bidding farewell to our hospitable hosts we drifted on down stream, shooting in the process a few very mild rapids. The behaviour of a _keleg_ in such places is perhaps a little startling to a nervous person; though as a matter of fact its safety lies in its eccentricity. Being composed of nothing but a multitude of separate skins, tied onto a very flexible frame, it twists and wriggles and "hogs and sags" in a manner most bewildering to the stranger on it, though it always comes out well into smooth water at the end. It is however, somewhat startling to be awakened at night by what seems a most unusually complicated earthquake.

Other _kelegs_ appear as we descend. Even in the present thinly populated state of the country, they are fairly numerous, and must have been far more so when the "Ten Thousand" marched up the eastern bank of this river. Indeed, they must have been so familiar, that it is a matter for surprise that the Greeks feared to make use of them, when it was a question of how to cross the Tigris with their baggage; particularly as they had at least one man in the army who was bred to their use. Still, they shrank from the unfamiliar, and preferred to abandon all their plunder and take to the hazardous passage of the mountains.

Tekrit, another city of vast antiquity, was reached and passed. This was a place of some importance in the ecclesiastical history of the land, as having been a stronghold of the Jacobites against the dominant Nestorian Church. It also marks a change in the geography, indicated by a change of _kelegji_. By law of that ancient brotherhood, the river falls into three stretches, and each man must stick to his own portion--Diarbekr to Mosul, Mosul to Tekrit, or Tekrit to Baghdad. This custom does somehow correspond to some subtle alteration in conditions, though we cannot trace how or why. But the fact remains that below that point the cattle develop humps, which they do not affect elsewhere; and that the traffic on the river is conducted not only in _kelegs_, but also in _ghufas_, which are not to be seen higher up.

A _ghufa_ is, if anything, more ancient than a _keleg_, for its type dates back to the flood, if not to the times before it; and the Babylonian "deluge tablets" seem to picture Shamashnapastim (the equivalent of Noah), as navigating a gigantic _ghufa_ of 140 cubits diameter. The craft is nothing but a wicker-work coracle of palm basket-work, circular in shape, but "pitched within and without with pitch" instead of being provided with a hide covering. In size it may be anything from the dimensions of a clothes' basket up to twenty or twenty-five feet in diameter, according to the size of the palm-spathes that form its ribs. It can hardly be capsized, and can carry enormous weights; but it is difficult to steer without practice, a novice tending to go round and round in a circle of small diameter.[152]

_Ghufas_ are hardly seen above Samarra, which is some fourteen hours below Tekrit, for the source of the bitumen with which they are pitched is near to the lower city. Samarra is itself historic enough, though it only appears in Western history as the scene of the action in which Julian fell. As a shrine and _ziaret_ of the _Shiah_ Mussulmans, however, it is second in sanctity only to Kerbela itself; for it is the burial-place, not indeed of the two grandsons of the Prophet, but of many of their comrades who fell beside them on the day of the "battle of the ditch"; and a magnificent mosque covers their bones.

To an antiquarian, however, there is something at Samarra of far greater interest than anything of either Roman or Mussulman history; for there stands the only _ziggurat_ or Babylonian temple tower that has not been ruined in the lapse of centuries. By some fortunate freak of fate, the great pyramid, with its spiral ascent to the summit, was preserved when worship ceased in the temple below. It went on as Zoroastrian fire-temple; and subsequently as minaret to the great mosque which Harun-l-Rashid built at its foot. That has gone now, and only a square of ruinous wall remains; but we owe some gratitude to the Abbassid, who was great enough to revere the monument of an older day.

So the monument has been preserved to our own time, and stands still with its brick casing practically intact. It must be beyond comparison the oldest tower in the world, for Samarra was one of the earliest of Babylonian shrines.

This site is, we believe, the one which the German excavators have decided to examine next, as soon as their work at Kala Shergat, which is now rapidly approaching completion, shall be finally done; and we understand that a preliminary survey, and perhaps a little experimental digging, has given them the right to hope for a harvest of most exceptional richness. One must trust that the proximity of the mosque will not hinder their work.

Slowly the last stage of the journey is accomplished, for the river current becomes gentler as it approaches the great delta of the two rivers. Hereabouts the capital of the country has stood since time began, though it has changed its place and name again and again. Date groves appear on the shore in place of melon gardens; and flocks of big pelicans (called "water-sheep" locally) gather on the sand-banks, accompanied by the only type of kingfisher which is quakerishly serious in his garb. Both above and below, his cousins flaunt magnificent metallic hues; but in the reaches above Baghdad he keeps to a simple black and white livery. Finally, "Baghdad's walls of fretted gold" are seen in the distance, and the _keleg_ has to be exchanged for a _ghufa_, for facility of shooting the bridge of boats.

Baghdad is civilization once more; a town that boasts hotels and European shops and costumes, besides being a railway terminus at present, to which trains may possibly attain in the future. Also it is a steamer port, being the highest point on the river to which the boats of Messrs. Lynch, which connect this place with Bassora and the open sea, are permitted to ascend.

We may see trains at Baghdad in a few years, but the engineers who are constructing the railway keep it enveloped in mystery now, and allow no man to approach without an order from the Governor-General of the town. One assumes there is good reason for this, though it is not obvious what harm anyone could do by looking at the steel sleepers.

Baghdad is considered thoroughly Oriental, and may appear so to the traveller who makes his entrance to Mesopotamia this way; but to one coming from the interior it has a flavour of new Turkey, semi-reformed, and unimproved. The big street that runs right through the town, to stop short at the garden wall of the British Consulate, is by way of being a parable of young Turkey, that started out with magnificent projects but without weighing the difficulties in the way, or its own powers of overcoming them. In this particular case, the _Vali_ of the town, anxious to set about his improvements, proposed to drive a road through the gardens of the British Residency, without with your leave or by your leave; regardless of the fact that the street, if desired, could be taken with equal ease by another route, where he would have found the British authorities ready to co-operate and assist. When the Consul protested, the road-makers were told to go on and carry out their orders; and only the ominous presence of a sepoy sentry on the top of the wall they proposed to demolish made them hold their hands. It was a reproduction in little of the British sentry who promenaded the _Pont de Jena_ at Paris when Blucher proposed to blow up that offensively named structure. To pull down a wall was nothing, but to knock down the sentry was a more formidable thing.

It is melancholy, however, and suggests the presence of a malevolent demon, when you see high-minded men set on carrying out lofty aims in such a way that they must fail, and that their own best friends are unable either to save or to help them. That has been the bane of Turkey since her revolution, coupled with an invincible ignorance of the truth that phrases will not clean pigsties.

Baghdad is the necessary starting-point for a pilgrimage to Babylon; and there are facilities for the expedition, in that the place lies only just to one side of the road to Kerbela, whither go _Shiah_ pilgrims every day in scores. Hence carriages are easily to be got, with relays of beasts on the way, and a start in the late afternoon will bring the traveller to Babylon in time for breakfast next day.

These conveyances are rude wagonettes, provided with springs in plenty, and drawn by four mules or horses harnessed abreast. The seats provided are merely hard wooden slats, narrow and uncomfortable, and the European is not advised to make use of them. A long cord passed from side to side across the carriage, so as to make a sort of hammock on which a camp mattress may be placed, is far preferable, and enables one to lie at ease all the night through. Whether one will get much sleep is questionable. The road is a mere unmetalled track, and the horses go at a brisk hand-gallop, taking all irregularities as they come; so that the carriage is apt to play "cup and ball" with its contents all the way. However, a halt from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. affords a welcome respite.

Still if the European cannot sleep, the native is of a superior type. Our assistant driver passed most of the journey rolled up in a ball under the feet of his superior on the box. There, though apparently in momentary danger of tumbling off under the wheels, he snored without interruption, under conditions that might have kept the Fat Boy wakeful and alert, never stirring save at the halts, and perhaps not being really roused even then. It is certain that he got off, took the collars from one set of animals and put them on to the next; but the act seemed absolutely mechanical and somnambulistic, and when it was accomplished he rolled into his place again and snored once more.

With the dawn we were making our way through a gap in that great wall that so struck the imagination of Herodotus, and which still runs like an abandoned railway embankment across the level plain. One must question, however, whether the great structure was really (as the "Father of History" tells us) built of burnt brick throughout, "laid in bitumen, and bonded with reeds at every thirty courses." Faced with that material it probably was; but it certainly has the appearance of being built, like most of the houses of the town, of unbaked mud.

Germans as hospitable as their compatriots at Assur received us at Babylon, and showed what they, working on the same thorough plan as their comrades, have uncovered of the greatest city of the ancient world.

Three great mounds, or sets of mounds, cover the ruins of Babylon, viz. Babil, Kasr (the palace mound), and Amran. It is the centre one of these that is now being excavated; though what has been uncovered is little but the foundations and basements of buildings, or in many cases nothing but the "matrices" from which every single burnt brick has been removed. The city has been used as a brick-quarry for centuries, Baghdad and various other towns being built almost entirely from this material; and it is a rather melancholy reflection that, when the Germans have finished their work, it is most probable that every brick they have uncovered will follow the others in the course of a few years. No matter how deep they bury them, they will be dug up, for good burnt building material commands its price in a city like Baghdad. One must get what consolation one can from the fact that at least good and accurate plans of the whole will be available.

All the buildings of the central mound are uncovered now, presenting to the casual visitor the appearance of a mere bewildering maze of brickwork, in which it is very easy to get lost, though all is clear enough to the expert eyes of the guide. Practically all that has been found is of the date of Nebuchadnezzar; for only one building above ground is the work of his father, Nabopolassar, and the most systematic borings have found nothing below.

At first sight it is strange that a city which was ancient in the days of Abraham should have no monuments older than those of a man who came very late in her history, and was in fact a sort of Louis XIV of Chaldaea; but there is an historical explanation of the fact. Babylon was utterly destroyed by Sennacherib of Assyria at about the time Rome was in building, it being the intention of that ruler that no man should dwell there more. This was his punishment for the series of rebellions against his authority, stirred up by that Merodach Baladan of Chaldaea, whose ambassadors make one transitory appearance in the Book of Kings. The awe which the whole world felt at this destruction of the most ancient and venerable of cities is reflected in the words of Isaiah: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the ground."

Of course the king could not attain his end. Men simply would not abandon the "Gate of the Gods," the Mother of civilization and culture for four thousand years; and Esarhaddon, the successor of Sennacherib, had to give permission for the rebuilding. Still, nothing very magnificent was attempted, and thus, when Chaldaea rose to empire under Nebuchadnezzar, there was nothing ancient and venerable in her capital. The King had a _tabula rasa_ for his great building schemes.

And what schemes these were! Really one cannot refuse sympathy to the words of pride recorded by the Prophet, when one sees even the ruins in their present state. "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" Scarce a brick is found that does not bear his name. Rome's _Via Sacra_ at its grandest can hardly have rivalled Babylon's Processional Way--a road eighty feet wide from kerb to kerb, exclusive of the twenty foot pathways on either side; and this paved throughout with slabs of alabaster, a yard square and half a yard in thickness, bedded on layer after layer of brick laid in bitumen. And the setting of the road was in keeping. It was lined from end to end with sculptured bulls and griffins, and the great gate of Ishtar spans it midway in its length. It runs from the grand temple of Merodach in the south, out to the mount of Babil in the north; forming, as it were, the spinal cord of the whole city, and passing just under the walls of the royal Palace.

Here the bulk of what has been uncovered consists of suite after suite of small rooms, usually in sets of four or six, and probably forming the apartments of the multitudinous Court officials. Also, there are long ranges of vaulted cellars and store-rooms; where in some cases the arches of the roof and door-way have survived for a testimony that the Chaldaeans were well acquainted with the principle of the vault. The great feature of the Palace, however, is the Hall of Audience--the scene, in all probability, of Belshazzar's feast--which happens to be the only part where the walls stand up above the original ground level. This is a grand hall indeed, measuring 200 feet by 80, and therefore as large as the nave of many a cathedral; and one can still trace opposite the doorway the apse that was the site of the throne. It is surprising to find that Chaldaean builders dared throw a vault across such a space as this; yet the total absence of the bases of any internal columns (such as would be needed to support a timber roof), unites with the extraordinary thickness of the side wall to convince the German excavators that such was actually the case. A "wagon vault" of such a span would be no mean feat even now; though the Sassanid builders did not fear it, as may be seen in the still existing "Arch of Chosroës" on the site of ancient Ctesiphon. This great vault, shown in our illustration, may still be seen standing near Baghdad, and was in all probability a replica of Nebuchadnezzar's hall.

To the north of the Palace was the deep dry moat which bounded both the city and the royal quarter; and which the Processional Way crossed, most probably by a bridge, though of this no evidence remains. The German excavators consider that this moat, or at all events some part of it, was the "den of lions" of the King of Babylon. There is evidence in parallel instances that such was the case elsewhere.

Of course the great temples of Bel-Merodach, Ishtar, and other gods, form a feature of the city, and have been most carefully excavated. They were constructed on a plan that seems strange to the Western; for they have no precinct, or have lost what they had, and the houses of the poorest quarter of the town actually abutted on the walls of the holiest of them.

Herodotus speaks of "courts two stadia square," but one cannot reconcile this with the facts. In design they seem to have followed the local type of house; for they consist of a series of comparatively small chambers, built round a small court. The shrine (which has usually an "ante-shrine" before it) is no more than an inner chamber at one end of this court; and has usually a secret passage behind it, communicating with the chambers where the priests lodged, and which it is difficult to believe was not intended for the production of "miraculous" oracles. Strangest of all perhaps is it to find that, while fine material like burnt brick, enamel, alabaster and hewn stone, is lavished on the palaces and secular buildings of the city, the temples of the gods are without exception built of plain sun-dried mud brick.

This extends even to the altars, which stand on a small pavement just without the main doorways, and practically in the street. There is no stone anywhere in any of the buildings, save the blocks on which the great doors revolved, which were buried out of sight.[153]

There must have been a reason for this choice, and economy can be ruled out of court without hesitation. Perhaps it is most probable that religious conservatism was the real motive. Men had built their temples, like their houses, of unburnt brick for centuries before they learned the art of burning it; and when that art had been acquired, the old material was still regarded as the proper one for the sacred purpose, and preserved accordingly. In like fashion the Jewish altar was for centuries composed of unhewn blocks of stone in a brazen frame, because the original altars of their patriarchs were unhewn of necessity. As a matter of fact, the very rudeness of the material of these temples has saved them from destruction when other buildings have perished. It was worth nobody's while to transport unbaked brick anywhere, and in consequence, now that the dêbris has been removed, the temple walls stand up to a far greater height than do those of the palace. One fears, however, that this cannot continue, for of course mud needs to be sheltered from rain-drip if it is to last; though if that condition be secured it is one of the most durable forms of building.

These temples can hardly have been beautiful monuments. Impressive they doubtless were, for size and proportion together can hardly fail in securing that; but impressive in the fashion of an older world. Built just when Greece was feeling her way to the matchless grace of the Parthenon, they stood like the elephant among beasts--the memorial of an earlier age of evolution, but a sight of awe and wonder to the younger races of men.

It is interesting, too, to find that even that younger civilization has its monument here among the tombs of the old. Babylon fell before the Persian, and her glory passed away. But when the Persian fell before the Greek Alexander, that last of the great kings of the East showed himself the first of modern rulers also, in that he had dreams of uniting ancient East and modern West in one great empire. It was a dream that passed with the dreamer; though it has been revived time and again since, and noble men will spend and be spent for it even now. Alexander had ideas of transplanting the finest flower of Greek culture to his new capital in the East--for such he intended Babylon to be. The dramas of Æschylus and Sophocles should be performed in ancient and restored Babylon; and with that object he ordered the construction of a Greek theatre of the best pattern of his day, in the mud brick of Babil. Strange parable of his great dreams, and strange exotic too, it stands to this day in the suburbs of Babylon; a memorial to all time of that first effort of the West to educate and assimilate the East--that East which it found so easy to overrun and so impossible to understand.

So "Babylon, the glory of nations, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," stands now uncovered for an hour, though a short time will see her hidden once more, and perhaps finally removed to form the material for modern houses.

Meantime, what of the land itself, which was the garden of the earth once, and is little but a mixture of swamp and desert now? The waters that men taught to make the land fruitful have been only its destruction when they were left uncontrolled. Will the great scheme that an English engineer has put forward make the land a garden once more? It can, of course--on the condition that it is properly managed. For nothing can take away the marvellous fertility of the soil; and there will be water for irrigation as long as the snow falls on Hakkiari and Ararat to feed the Tigris and the Euphrates.

If the work is managed, when finished, by the men who designed and executed it, it will do as much for the delta of Mesopotamia as the "Barrage" of the Nile has done for its delta, or the dam of Assouan for upper Egypt. But the Barrage, when built, stood absolutely useless for decades, because those who ruled the country would not trust the builders to administer their own work, fearing the power that such a position would give them in the land that they were saving. Will those men of the same stock who rule in Mesopotamia submit to govern by foreign advice, and so save the country? Or will they say (as they have always thought hitherto), "We cannot save our rule by compliance. Let the land go to ruin, and the people too. At least it is ours, and we will rule it to the end."

One who knew the Ottoman better than most has said, "If you want to know what a Turk will do under any circumstances, think first what you would do yourself; then what he ought to do; then what it is his obvious interest to do. After that, you can rule out all those alternatives with complete confidence; and that will at least narrow down the field of possible choice."

Still, we must hope for the best. May it be an omen that the date-palm (Babylon's ancient and beautiful emblem of fertility and life) is now springing up anew in every trench of the excavations at Babil--sown there by the stones of the dates served out as rations to the native staff of labourers.