Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/120

80 gathered from the valonîa oaks in Coordistan, and wool which is brought in by the pastoral Arabs and Coords, and exported hence to Europe by way of Baghdad and Aleppo. The staple agricultural produce is wheat and barley, which is so abundant that it hardly repays the cost of cultivation. The former is now [1850] selling for eight and the latter for five pence the hundred weight. The distance of Mosul from Europe must ever prevent the establishment of a lucrative trade in grain, and the want of an export adequate to the large imports from abroad is gradually destroying the resources of this province. Silk might be produced in large quantities in the mountains, where the mulberry grows almost wild; but such is the short-sightedness and supineness of the government, that beneficial measures of this kind are made to give way to trumpery reforms in dress, mere outward changes in the mode of administration, or to vain and ambitious designs of conquest. The cultivation of the mulberry was introduced into Diarbekir about eight years ago, and the result has surpassed the most sanguine expectations.

The transport trade from Mosul to Baghdad is carried on by rafts, the same species of conveyance that was used in the days of Herodotus, and long before his time, as may be ascertained from many illustrations on the slabs which have lately been dug up at Nineveh. These are constructed of a stout frame-work of rough timber, to which a deck of canes is secured with ligatures of bark. Beneath this the sheep-skins are fastened with the opening peering above the reeds, so as to facilitate their being inflated anew in case the air should escape during the voyage. The rafts for carrying merchandize vary from sixteen to twenty feet square, and are floated by as many as five hundred skins.