Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/59

Rh more to the west, and Mesopotamia to the east. In virtue of its position it frequently formed both the object and the scene of contest between the armies of those mighty monarchies, and it is wonderful how a country so often devastated almost always recovered. The roads, it is true, which traversed the territory were not mere military highways, but the main routes of traffic for Central Asia, Western Asia, and Europe. It is only in modern times, and since these lines of commercial intercourse have ceased to be followed, that the general condition of things has been so entirely altered. The number of roads Avhich in ancient times traversed the country was very considerable ; the Euphrates formed not a barrier but a bond between the nations on either side; at many places there were at least boat-bridges (zeugma) across. One of the most important of the ancient crossing-places must be sought, where in fact it still exists, at Birejik, the ancient Apamea-Zeugma. From this point a great road led across to Edessa (Orfa) ; there it divided into two branches, the northern going by Amid (Diarbekr) and the other by Mardin and Nisibis to Mosul (Nineveh). In quite recent times, in order to avoid the direct route across the desert and through the midst of the Bedouins, the post-road makes a great circuit from Nisibis by Jeziret ibn Omar to Mosul. A second route crossed the Euphrates somewhat more to the south, and joined the other rm Harran and Rhesaena. The principal crossing of the earlier times (Xenophon) was at Thapsacus, almost opposite Rakka ; and it will be remembered also how important a part Thapsacus (Tiphsah) plays in the Old Testament. Sometimes a route along the Euphrates to Babylonia was followed, as is still frequently done by caravans at the present day ; but even in ancient times this course was attended by more or less difficulty, the country being occupied by the chiefs of independent Arab tribes, with whom the travellers had to come to terms. The ancient condition of things must consequently be considered as essentially analogous to that of the present day ; the central districts away from the rivers were occu pied at certain seasons, according as they yielded pasture, by nomadic cattle-grazing tribes, the physical character of the country being then and now the same on the whole as that of the Syrian desert, which belongs not to Syria but properly to Arabia. On the banks of the rivers were settled half-nomadic Arab tribes, tribes, that is, which were more or less on the way to the agricultural stage, or which, having become altogether agricultural, had never theless, owing to frequent intercourse with the Bedouins, lost little of their original character, and even maintained their independence. The same movement takes place over and over again : Arab tribes migrating from Arabia, that officina gentium, gradually settle down wherever circum stances prove favourable, and by this very change in their mode of life make their first step towards civilization. In this way a continual stream of Arabs has flowed into the civilized countries of Mesopotamia. On the Assyrian monuments are figures of Arabs riding on camels ; evidently the Assyrians had carried on war against the Bedouins settled in their territory. At an early period the Tai Arabs were the neighbours of the Aramaeans, and consequently all Arabs bear in Syriac the name of Tay6ye. The district between Mosul and Nisibis received the name Be&quot;th Arbaye&quot; from its being occupied by Arabs. These Tai Arabs, whose original home was Central Arabia, are still settled partly near Nisibis and partly east of Mosul ; but they have to some extent lost their old noble Bedouin manners. The wandering Arab tribe which at the present time is dominant in Mesopotamia is the Shammar ; they have driven back the Aneze, the most powerful tribe of the 49 Syrian desert. It is only two or three generations ago that the Shammar came from Nejd ; but they have already broken up into two great parties. The head of the one division is FerMn, who has more or less completely sub mitted to the Turks, and has consequently obtained the title of pasha ; to him adhere the Shammar tribes between Mosul and Baghdad, and those also to the east of the Tigris. The head of the tribes who roam over the greater part of Mesopotamia pasturing their camels and sheep to the east of the Chaboras in the colder season and to the north in the hotter is the chivalrous FAris. These western tribes are totally independent of the Turkish Government, and have offered determined opposition to the attempts of the authorities at Ddr to force them to a settled way of life; they still lay the peasants of Mesopotamia under contribution by exacting Khuwwe, &quot;brother-money,&quot; or a portion of grain. The Shammar live in almost perpetual feud with their relations to the east, and especially with the Aneze on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates, the so-called Shamfye. Many other Bedouin tribes might here be mentioned ; but it may be enough to name the Delem on the Euphrates as an example of a tribe just in process of becoming agricultural. In the northern parts of Mesopo tamia there are a number of tribes of mingled Kurds and Arabs which have to a greater or less degree abandoned their tents for fixed habitations and the tillage of the ground; such are the Beraziye near Orfa, the Milliye between Orfa and Mardin, and the Kikfye nearer Mardiu and also in the neighbourhood of Mosul. It is extremely hard to obtain trustworthy statistical information about the number of the Bedouins ; the Shammar may have a total strength of some 3500 tents. In the difficult contests which it has to carry on with those independence-loving tribes, the Turkish Government acts in general on the principle divide et impera. The Kurdish element only appears sporadically in the true Mesopotamian plain ; but the Yezidis, who form the population of the Sinjar range, may be referred to this stock. He who encounters the uncanny figure of one of these people will hardly be able to restrain a slight shudder, especially if he remembers the graphic descriptions of the Yezidi robbers in Morier s Ayesha. Of the old Aramaean peasantry there are no longer any important remains in the plain, the Aramaeans having withdrawn farther into the Kurdish highlands, where, in spite of their wild Kurdish neighbours, they are more secure from exactions of every kind. The plain of the northern country of the two rivers was at one time richly cultivated, and owed its prosperity to this industrious people, who formerly played so distin guished a part as a connecting link between the Persians and the Koman empire and afterwards between the Western and the Arabian world, and whose highest culture was developed in this very region. Quite otherwise is it now. In the plain there are almost no remains of the common Aramaean tongue. Apart from the scattered areas in which Kurdish prevails, the ordinary language is a vulgar Arabic dialect ; but both Kurdish and Aramaean (Syriac) have exercised an influence on the speech of the Arab peasant. Finally it must be mentioned that certain Turcoman hordes roam about the Mesopotamian territory. In climate and in the character of its soil, as well as in its ethno graphic history, Mesopotamia holds an intermediate position. In this aspect also we must maintain the division into two quite distinct zones. The southern half consists mainly of grey, dreary flats covered with selenite ; and gypsum everywhere makes its appearance a little below the surface ; bitumen is not unfrequent, and here and there it rises in petroleum wells. In the solid strata of gypsum and marl the rivers have carved out valleys, from a quarter to half a mile- broad and from 40 to 50 or even 100 feet deep, which with their arable soil contrast with the barren surface of the more elevated desert (chol). Especially below Bcdlis there are marl-hills capped with gypsum, and alluvial plains (so-called hdwis) of considerable extent XVI. 7