Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/247

Rh and elegant. With all his faults lie stands as the greatest figure between Holberg and Ohlenschliiger. Of all his poems, however, the loveliest and best is a little simple song, called There was a time when, I was very little, which every Dane, high or low, knows by heart, and which is matchless in its simplicity and pathos. It has outlived all his epics. (Author:Edmund William Gosse)  BAGHDAD, a Turkish pashalic or government of Asia, computed to have an area of above 100,000 square miles. It stretches in a N.W. direction, from the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab at Bussorah, to Merdin, situated near the source of the Tigris ; and from the confines of Persia to the banks of the Khabour, which separates it from the pashalic of Diarbekir. Its general boundaries are the Euphrates and the Arabian desert of Nejd to the W. and S., Kusistan and Mount Zagros to the E., the pashalic of Diarbekir to the N.W., and Armenia with the terri tories of the Kurdish chief of Julamerick to the 1ST. This great tract comprehends ancient Babylonia and the greatest part of Assyria proper. The first includes the space enclosed by the Tigris and the Euphrates, which is also known under the general appellation of Mesopo tamia; and the second, that which is beyond the Tigris, commonly called Lower Kurdistan. This tract of country is an extensive and very fertile plain, and is watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates, which at Baghdad approach within 25 miles of each other, and afford an inexhaustible supply of the finest water. Only some parts of these fertile districts, however, are cultivated, as the population consists in many places of wandering Arabs, who are averse to agriculture, and who, in their vagrant lifo of idleness and rapine, neglect all the natural advantages of the country. The most productive portion of the pashalic is on the banks of the Shatt-el-Arab, in the neighbourhood of Bussorah. This tract, for upwards of 30 miles below that city, is well cultivated, and yields vast quantities of dates, wheat, barley, and various kinds of fruits. The banks of the Euphrates produce abundant crops of dry grain. Higher up the Euphrates, the country which is possessed by the Arabs is a low marshy tract, formed by the expansion of the Euphrates, and is famed for plentiful crops of rice. Among the mountainous districts of the Upper Euphrates the country is highly picturesque and beautiful ; it is watered by the River Mygdonius (the Gozan of Scripture), and is in a tolerable state of cultivation. It produces in abundance the finest fruits, such as grapes, olives, figs, pomegranates, which are considered the most delicious in the East ; apples, pears, apricots of an inferior quality ; and the finest dates, on which the inhabitants, as in other parts of Asia, depend in many cases for subsist ence. The domestic animals are, the horse, for which the country has long been famed, the ass, camel, drome dary, buffalo, and mule. Of the wild animals, the lion, the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, and the wild boar, are common ; and antelopes are very numerous. Hares are plentiful, but foxes are seldom seen. All sorts of poultry are bred except the turkey. On the cultivated lands, and on the borders of the rivers, the black partridge is met with in great numbers. Snipes and almost every species of wild fowl may be found in the marshes, and pelicans on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. In addition to these two rivers, the country is watered by the Khabour or Chaboras, formed by the junction of several small streams about ten miles to the S.W. of Merdin, and by the Mygdonius, or Gozan, the Hennas of the Arabs, which used formerly to discharge a part of its waters into the Euphrates through the Khabour, and a part into the Tigris through the Thirthar, passing by Hatra. but which is now entirely lost in a salt marsh at the foot of the Sinsrar hills. In ancient times the plain of Mesopotamia was occupied by the great and wealthy cities of Nineveh, Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, &c., and was in a high state of cul tivation. It was intersected by many well-constructed canals and other works, which, in dispersing over the country the superfluous waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, proved extremely useful to agriculture. These works are now all ruined, and not a vestige remains of many of tho canals, while the course of others can only be faintly traced in their imperfect remains. One canal, however, called El-Hye, still exists ; it connects the Euphrates and the Tigris exactly half-way between Bussorah and Baghdad, and is navigable in spring for large boats.  BAGHDAD, a city of Asia, formerly the capital of the empire of the caliph, and long renowned for its commerce and its wealth, is situated on an extensive and desert plain, which has scarcely a tree or village throughout its whole extent ; and though it is intersected by the Tigris, it stands mostly on its eastern bank, close to the water s edge. Old Baghdad on the W. is now considered as merely a suburb to the larger and more modern city on the eastern shore, the former containing an area of only 146 acres, while the latter extends over 591. It has, however, numerous and extensive streets, well furnished with shops, and is protected by strong walls, with three gates opening towards Hillah on the Euphrates and Kazimeen. Beyond these modern .bulwarks vestiges of ancient buildings, spreading in various directions, are visible in the plain, which is strewed with fragments of brick, tiles, and rubbish. A burying-ground has extended itself over a large tract of land formerly occupied by the streets of the city ; and here is the tomb of Zobeide, the favourite wife of Haroun el Raschid, built of brick, of a high octagonal shape, and surmounted by a lofty superstructure in the form of a cone. It was originally built in, but has been frequently restored. The two towns of Old and New Baghdad are connected by a bridge of thirty pontoons. The form of the new city is that of an irregular oblong, about 1500 paces in length by 800 in breadth; and a brick wall, about five miles in circuit, encloses the town on both sides of the river. This wall, which is built of brick, has been constructed and repaired at different periods ; and, as in most other works of the same nature in Mahometan countries, the oldest portion is the best, and the more modern the worst part of the fabric. At the principal angles are large round towers, with smaller towers intervening at short distances ; and on these large towers batteries are planted, with brass cannon of different calibre, badly mounted. Of two of these angular towers Mr Buckingham remarked that the workmanship is equal to any ancient masonry that he had ever seen. The wall has three gates one on the S.E., one on the N.E., and a third on the N.W. of the city; and it is surrounded by a dry ditch of considerable depth. A fourth gate on the northern side, which has been closed since the capture of the city by Sultan Amurath IV. in 1638, is a good specimen of Saracenic brick-work. It was formerly called " the white Gate," but is now known as the " Bab-el-Tilism" or " Talismanic Gate," from a fine Arabic inscription in relief on a scroll border round the tower, which bears the date of 618  The town has been built without the slightest regard to regularity. The streets are even more intricate and winding than those in most other Eastern towns; and, with the exception of the bazaars and some open squares, the interior is little else than a labyrinth of alleys and passages. The streets are unpaved, and in many places so narrow that two horsemen can scarcely pass each other ; and as it is seldom that the houses have windows facing the great public thoroughfares, and the doors are small and mean, they present on both sides the 