Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/57

Rh M E S M E S Blunt describes as &quot; an ideal Eastern city, standing in an absolute desert, and bare of all surroundings but its tombs,&quot; consists of narrow gloomy streets lined by houses closely packed together. The locality is properly named Najaf, and gives its name to the neighbouring lake, a large depression filled by an eruption of the river, and ranging from 6 to 20 feet in depth. The accumulated treasures of the shrine were carried off by the Wahhdbites when they captured this place early in the present century. The population is estimated at 7000, including several Indian Mohammedans under the protection of the British resident at Baghdad. The aspect of the shrine in the 14th century is described by Ibn Batiita, i. 414 sq. A plan of the town and description of its splendour before the Wahhdbites pillaged it is given oy Niebuhr. See also Ibn Jubair, p. 214 ; P. Teixeira, Itin., cap. iv. MESHED HOSEIN, properly MESHHED HOSEIN. See KEEBELA, vol. xiv. p. 48. MESMER, MESMERISM. See vol. xv. p. 277. tee Plate MESOPOTAMIA, the &quot; country between the rivers,&quot; is a I- purely geographical expression, the countries which it com prehends never having formed a self-contained political unity. 1 It was first introduced by the Greeks at or after the time of Alexander, but probably had its origin in the earlier Aramaean name betk nahrtn (the country between the rivers), to which again corresponds the Biblical Aram Naha rayim. 2 As early as 700 B.C. &quot; the country of two rivers &quot; is mentioned on the Egyptian monuments under the name Naharina, but no such designation appears in the cunei form inscriptions (though the territory formed part of the Assyrian as it afterwards did of the Persian empire). The most settled period in the history of Mesopotamia was probably under Persian-Greek rule. Xenophon applies the name Syria to the extremely fertile district which he traversed after having crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus. The country beyond the Araxes (Chaboras 1) he calls Arabia, a desert region in which his army had to suffer great hardships until it reached the &quot; gates of Arabia.&quot; Even in later times Mesopotamia was included under the name Assyria, or was reckoned part of Babylonia. These statements of Xenophon already indicate a demarcation of the territory afterwards called Mesopotamia, as well as its division into two sections. The fertile portion, inhabited by agricultural Aramaeans, stretched from the Euphrates to the Chaboras ; the desert portion, the home of wandering tribes, extended to the Tigris. It would be rash, however, to conclude from this that Mesopotamia designated the whole territory between the Euphrates and Tigris; indeed it is possible that Aram Naharayim, the Aram of the country of the two rivers, originally meant only the main portion of the fertile country inhabited by Syrians. In this case the two boundary rivers must have been, not the Euphrates and the Tigris, but the Euphrates and the Chaboras. After the final occupation of the country by the Romans (156 A.D.), the political province of Mesopotamia was practically confined to this more limited district. Though in ordinary usage the Euphrates and Tigris are considered as the two rivers which bound Mesopotamia, the one bank of the river cannot be geographically separated from the other, and consequently narrow strips of country on the right bank of the Euphrates and on the left bank of the Tigris must be reckoned to the country &quot;between&quot; the rivers. On the other hand, the country between the sources of the Euphrates and the Tigris has from early times been 1 MetroiroTa/xto, more exactly f) ^tai TWV irora/j.wi, scil. x&P a or 2upio. 2 In the more recent parts of Genesis Padan Aram takes the place of Aram Naharayim. But this perhaps is the name of a smaller district in the neighbourhood of Harran. reckoned not to Mesopotamia but to Armenia. In this direction the Masius range forms the proper boundary, and it is only on rare occasions that theoretical geographers extend the name Mesopotamia over the more northern districts, Sophene, &c. Purely theoretical too, and not to be approved, is the extension of the definition so as to include the land of Babylonia ( Irak l Arabi), that is, the country as far south as the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, or even as far as their embouchure in the Persian Gulf. From what has been said it appears that Mesopotamia reaches itsnorthern limitsat the points where the EUPHRATES (q.v.) and the Tigris break through the mountain range and enter the lowlands. In the case of the Euphrates this takes place at Sumeisat (Samosata), in that of the Tigris near Jeziret ibn Omar (Bezabda) and Mosul (Nineveh). Consequently the irregular northern boundaries are marked by the lowland limits of those spurs of the Taurus mountains known in antiquity as Mons Masius and now as Karaje Dagh and Tur Abdin. Towards the south the ancient boundary was the so-called Median Wall, which, near Pirux Shapur, not much to the south of Hit (the ancient Is), crossed from the Euphrates in the direction of Kadisiya (Opis) to the Tigris. There the two rivers approach each other, to diverge again lower down. At the same place begins the network of canals connecting the two rivers which rendered the country of Babylonia one of the richest in the world ; there too, in a geological sense, the higher portion of the plain, consisting of strata of gypsum and marl, comes to an end ; there at one time ran the line of the sea-coast ; and there begin those alluvial formations with which the mighty rivers in the course of long ages have filled up this depressed area. Mesopotamia thus forms a triangle lying in the north-west and south-east direction, with its long sides towards the north and south west. It extends from 37 30 to about 33 N. lat. and from 38 to 46 E. long., and has an area of some 55,200 square miles. The points at which the rivers issue from among the mountains have an absolute altitude of between 1000 and 1150 feet, and the plain sinks rapidly towards the southern extremity of Mesopotamia, where it is not more than about 165 feet above the sea. As a whole the entire country consists of a single open stretch, save that in the north there are some branches of the Taurus the Nimrud Dagh near Orfa, the long limestone range of Abd-el Aziz, running north-north-west, and farther to the east the Sinjar range, also of limestone, 7 miles broad and 50 miles long, running north-north-east. Between these two ranges near the isolated basaltic hill of Tell Kokab (Hill of Stars) runs the defile by which the waters of the Chaboras, swollen by the Jaghjagha and other affluents from the Masius, find their way into the heart of Mesopotamia. The KMbur proper, the ancient Chaboras, which rises in the three- hundred copious fountains of Rds- ain (the ancient Rhesaena), and ultimately falls into the Euphrates near Karkisiyd (Circesium), forms the boundary between the two, or more correctly the three, great divisions of Mesopotamia. These divisions are (1) the northern country to the west of the Khdbiir, (2) the northern country to the east, and (3) the steppe-land. In the country to the north-west of the Khabur we must probably, as already mentioned, recognize the true ancient Aram Naharayim. Under the dominion of the Seleucids it bore the name of Osrhoene, or better Orrhoene, and was for a time the seat of a special dynasty which at a later date at any rate was Arabian (Abgar). The capital of this kingdom was Orfa (Roha), the Edessa of the Greeks and Romans, the Orrhoi of the Syrians ; it was at a later date a Roman colony, and bore also the name of Justinopolis. This once flourishing city lies on the small river Daisan (the ancient Scirtus). South of Edessa lie