Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/695

Rh EUPHKATES 669 character of the Euphrates is that of a river of the first ] order struggling through high hills or rather low mountains, prolongations of the chain of Anti-Taurus, and making an exceedingly tortuous course as it forces its way over a rocky or a pebbly bed from one natural barrier to another. As it winds round its numerous barriers it carries occasionally towards each of the cardinal points a considerable body of water and is shallow enough in some places for loaded camels to pass in autumn, the water rising to about 4i feet. The general direction of the left arm of the Euphrates, which is termed the MurAd-chai, and which, rising near Diyadin, skirts the plains both of Mush and Kharput, is westerly as far as its junction with the right arm near Keban Maaden. This right arm again, which rises near Erzeroum, and which, though of inferior length and size, is generally regarded as the true Euphrates, runs south westerly by Erzingan Kamakh (Kumukh of the inscriptions, and Gr. Ko/x/xayiyi v;) and Egin to the point of junction. There, however, the direction of the river changes. Meet ing obliquely the Anti-Taurus, which afterwards rises into the Ji ijik-dagh (the Mount Abus of antiquity), it is forced to the south through some very precipitous gorges to the vicinity of Malatieh. It then crosses the broken country between the Anti-Taurus and Taurus, and finally forces its way through the latter range in a succession of rapids and cataracts for a space of about 40 miles, till it emerges upon the great Syrian plain, a short distance above Samsat, the ancient Samosata, where Lucian dwelt and wrote. The Euphrates now enters on its middle division, which may be considered to extend from Samsat to Hit. The direction here is at first S.W., then S., and afterwards S.E. from about the 36th parallel of latitude to its embouchure in the Persian Gulf. The river in this part of its course runs through a valley of a few miles in width, which it has eroded in the rocky surface, and which, being more or less covered with alluvial soil, is pretty generally cultivated by artificial irrigation. The method of irrigation is peculiar, dams of solid masonry being run into the bed of the river, frequently from both sides at once, so as to raise the level of the stream and thus to give a water power of several feet in height which is used to turn a gigantic wheel some times 40 feet in diameter. The water is thus raised to a trough at the top of the dam, and from thence is distri buted among the gardens, and melon beds, and rice fields, occupying the valley between the immediate bed of the river and the rocky banks which shut it out from the desert. The wheels, which are of the most primitive construction, being made of rough branches of trees, with 100 or 150 rude clay vessels slung on the outer edge, raise a prodigious amount of water, and are moreover exceedingly picturesque, the dams or aqueducts to which they are attached being often formed of a series of well-built Gothic arches ; but they are great impediments to navigation, as they cause a current of six or seven knots an hour, which cannot be surmounted by any ordinary steam power. In some parts of the river 300 of these wheels have been counted within a space of 1 30 miles, and when our steamers first appeared upon the river, not forty years ago, at least one-third of the wheels were in working order ; but they have since fallen very generally into ruin, the Arab population, which used to cultivate the immediate banks of the river, having for the most part moved further off into the desert. The rocks which form the river banks during this part of its course are composed of gypsum, sandstone, and conglomer ate with mica and felspar, and at some points, as at Helebi-Jelebi (the ZabA andZalA of the Arabs) approach close to the water s edge. Beyond the rocky banks on both sides is the open desert, covered in spring with a luxuriant verdure, and dotted here and there with the black tent of the Bedouin, the great tribe of Shamar hold ing the left bank or Jozlr6h, as the Anezeh possess the right bank or Shamiyoh. The middle course of the Euphrates has also played a great part in history. In very early times it formed a boundary between the empire of Assyria to the east and the great nation of the Khetta, or Hittites, to the west; and the capital of the latter people, known in Scripture as Carchemish (2 Chron xxxv. 20), was built upon its banks. The ruins of this city, now known as Yerabolus, a corruption of the Greek Hierapolis, have been recently examined by Mr George Smith, and are found to contain numerous well-preserved bas-reliefs (with inscriptions in the Hamathite character), which promise to be of the utmost importance as forming the connecting link that has been long sought between Egyptian and Assyrian art. In the vicinity of Hierapolis, or Carchemish, was the upper passage of the Euphrates on. the road conducting from Syria to Nineveh. The site is now known as Bir or Birejek, but it retained the title of Zugma (Greek, fvyp.a), according to the Arab geographers, to comparatively modern times (see Yaciit in voce), and the remains of the old bridge were still to be seen there in the 7th century of the Hegira, popularly known as the Jisr Membij, or bridge of Membij, the Arabic form of the Syriac Mabog or Hieropolis. The lower passage of the Euphrates conducting from Syria to Babylonia, which retained, among the Greeks, the old Semitic title of Thapsacus (or HDn 1 Kings v. 4, &c.), is usually placed at Der, 200 miles lower down the river ; but Captain Lynch, who carefully examined the country, would prefer the position of Phunsah above Racca, where he found the remains of an ancient bridge. The Euphrates is singularly deficient in tributaries after it leaves the mountains ; with the exception, in deed, of the Sartjeh (Siyyas of the Greeks) and the tiajur (Sangar of the Assyrian inscriptions) on the right bank, and the Bilikh and Khdbur on the left, which have retained their present names unchanged for thirty centuries, there is no affluent to the Euphrates of any con sequence after it has once broken through the Taurus range. In antiquity, indeed, there would seem to have been a river named Araxes by Xenophon, and Saocoras by Ptolemy, which descended from the Sinjar hills, and, running due south, joined the Euphrates between Der and Annah; but no traces of such a stream are now to be found, and it has been suggested therefore that its disappearance may be due to the same upheaval of the land at the south-eastern foot of the Sinjar hills, which diverted the Nisibin river (Gozan of scripture, Mygdonius of the Greeks, and Hermas of the Arabs) from its ancient course by Hatra to Tekrit on the Tigris, and forced it to join the Khabiir and ulti mately the Euphrates. During the Mahometan period there were many flourish ing towns on the banks of the river in the middle part of its course. The geographers mention in succesion Somei- sat, Rum-Kaleh, Jisr-Mambej or Bir, Beles, El Ja aber (or Dusar), Ilacca (Nicephorium at the mouth of the Bilikh), Kerkessieh (Circesaium at the mouth of the Khabur), Rahbeh, Ddr-el-Kaim (Gordian s tomb? and the bound ary between the Roman and Persian empires), Annah (or Anatho), Haditheh, Alus, Nauseh, and Hit. Many of these cities are now in ruins, but the sites can for the most part be identified, and they would all well repay a careful examination ; at present the most consider able towns are Samsdt, Bir, Annah, and Hit. From Bir to Ja aber the river is rather sluggish, running over a sandy or pebbly bed ; further down, and as far as Hit, the general character of the bed is rocky, and between Annah and Hit, it is thickly studded with islands, cm which were built in former times the castles and treasuries of the rulers of the land, many of these nlands being still inhabited.