The New York herald., 1870-04-26
The Garden Of Eden-Modcrn Progress, In
the Enst.

O"i op0oi"i corrcSpOhuousy WIN uCoos"P"nio"
the memorable Napier expedition into Abys-
sinia, gave the readers Of the HERALD some
exceedingly interesting letters Of the ancient
dominion Of the Queen Of Sheba, that famous
queen who, in great state, made the long jour
ney to Jerusalem to see for herself the wisdom
and the glory Of King Solomon. Among the
curious traditions Of Abyssinia, In this connec-
ton, furnished to the outside world by our
commissioner, was this: that from this afore-
said Journey the delighted Queen Of Sheba re-
turned to give to her royal line the glory Of .
descent from the glorious Solomon, and that
King Theodorus thus claimed him as the head
of his family. We published, however, In our
issue Of Sunday last. letter from HERALD
correspondent in another quarter and from
scenes which, through the imperial Caliphs Of
Bagdad and the Oriental splendors Of the
"Arabian Nights" and Alexander's browning
victories and death, and the royal cities Of
Babylon and Nineveh, whose sculptures to this
day testify to their magnfcence, and beyond
Cyrus, Xenophon, Belshazzar and Nebuchad-
nezzar, carry us back to the Tower of Babel,
and thence to the first pair Of the human
family and to the Garden of Eden ITSELF
Our correspondent in this ancient region,
after ascending in Turkish steamboat the
Euphrates and the Tigris to Bagdad, writes
that the site of the Garden of Eden, by tradi-
ton, is located at the junction Of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, at an Arab village
called Korneh (about a hundred miles above
the Persian Gulf, and that this is the only
place which, in all essential points (including
the four rivers) agrees with the Scriptural
narrative of the surroundings of Paradise.
"To look at Korneh," says our correspondent,
cit Is by no means Paradisaical abode,
though 1t is certainly much more inviting
location than many other towns along these
rivers. Scattered along the bank are some
couple of hundred houses, made of reeds and
thatch, while nearly on the extreme point,
where the rivers meet, shanty has been built
for telegraph station )" and we agree with
our traveller that " 1t is curious, indeed, to
think of the site of the rustic arbor In which
propriated as q resting-place for commercial
bulletins and newspaper dispatches" We are
further told that "the town people live
chiefly by the cultivation of dates, of which
there are several plantations enclosed by mud
walls )" that besides the date there is only one
other kind of tree in the locality, which, though
not fig tree, is plundered of it's leaves by
every traveller as souvenirs; that two or three
years ago the real fig trees of Korneh were
carried off to the British residency at Marsill,
and are much esteemed as lineal descendants
of the trees from whose leaves Adam and Eve
made themselves aprons
This is very interesting budget of facts,
and what world of speculatons, looking
backward and looking forward, they suggest
The basin OF Mesopotamia, drained by the
Euphrates ard Tigris, is some seven hundred
miles long. north and south, by two hundred
miles wide. Under the rule of the Turk it has
become little better than an unbroken waste,
the rich lands on the rivers being reduced to
marshes by inundations, while all beyond on
both sides have gone back to the domain
of the Arabian and Persian deserts.
We know, however, from the fouishing
and elegant empire of the Arabian or
Saracen Caliphs of Bagdad, when their
dominion extended from the Tigris and
Euphrates to Egypt and thence across
Northern Africa to Morocco and thence into
Spain and we know, from the mighty armies
and splendid cities Of the Medes and Persians
and Assyrians, that the basin of the Euphrates
in times past must have sustained many
millions Of prosperous people, and at the
highest mark of the civilization Of their day
and we know that what in the cultivation of
the earth was done in times past can be done
again.
The telegraph station at the Garden of Eden
and the steamboat on the Tigris and
Euphrates mark the beginning of the new age
of modern renovation of those seats of ancient
empires in the distant ages of the past. A
railway from the Mediterranean across the
desert and by the southern end of the Dead
Sea to the lower valley Of the Euphrates or
the Persian Gulf, and the Infusion
among those people of even o little
Anglo-Saxon enterprise, will soon re-
vive that overland trade which in ancient
times enriched even the intervening deserts
between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean
with cities Of marble temples and palaces. All
those countries Of Western Asia which figured
so conspicuously through the first three thou
sand years Of the human family, and which
contributed so much by their migrations to
the peopling Of Europe, though now gone to
decay, are destined soon, by reaction from
the West, to undergo wonderful resurrec-
ton. And such things as the Suez Canal and
railway, and the telegraph station In the origi-
nal Garden Of Eden, and the steamboat on the
Euphrates and the Tigris, are the pioneers an
nouncing this approaching revolution over all
the sleeping East.
AN ITALIAN BANKER in Paris has presented
one hundred thousand francs to the republican
committee engaged in agitating against the