Omaha daily bee., 1906-11-25
GARDEN OF EDEN INVADED
BaEdnd Railroad Plans 60 Rock the
Cradle Of the Human
Race.

The home Of the most ancient civilization
ls TO be made accessible by a railroad. The
Bsgdad railroad is the name commonly
given to the line which is 20 connect Con-
stantinopie with the Persian gulf by way
of BaEdad and whose world wide impor-
tance dazzles the mind, for this railway
is destined to become the link that will
bind the near east TO tho far east the
west 60 the near east
The enterprise has been undertaken ana
its achievement which will respond to an
otherwise unanswerable demand is hence
forth only a question OF time.
II is no eNaggeration to say that tho
immediate-or at least the far from re-
mote-result OF the building Of the Bagdad
railway will be the regeneration OF Meso-
potamia. And that region in which sacred
legends have placed the cradle Of the race,
those banks where the native Arab boat
man shows the traveller the site Of the
Garden OF Eden those immense plains
which I'm ancient times we're the richest
and most populous on earth and which to-
day are arid and deserted-that region will
regain its lapsed speuddr.
What Babylon was In the days OF an
tiquity, Herodotus and Xenophon ana all
the Greek and Latin have told again and
again. Their stories are daily more COM
pletely corroborated by the patient and
persevering efforts Of the French archae-
illogical expedition under NJ De Morgan.
The plains watered by the Tlgris and
the Euphrates were the granarles OF the
ancient world There, say modern scien-
lists. corn was first grown and Herodotus
gives figures to show that the yield was
greater than has ever been obtained else
where.
Mesopotamia is the chosen home Of the
sugar cane Of cotton and Of all the agri-
cultural products that have enriched the
Egyptian delta. And yet upon all those
vast stretches OF fertile land, where for
merly millions Of men lived amid album
dance and where for more than thirty cen-
| turtles there nourished the most brilliant
civilization, lies now the curse Of aridty
/ and desolauon, with nothing but desert as
| far as the eye can reach.
/ Where once stood Babylon the proud the
| camps OF the Bedouins now parade their
| eprosy. SOrdid, ragged-like the wretched
! herdsmen who inhabit then-tents sup
| ported by frail reeds replace the sumptuous
and massive Assyrian buildings.
History that the first Chaldean Civiliza-
/ ton was succeeded by that OF invaders at
tracted by the rich prey OF what was then
! the rich country Of Babylonia-the As
syrians, the Medes and Persians, then the
Greeks. the Parthlans, the Romans and the
Persian Sassanides and finally the Mohain-
medans with their caliphs.
Bagdad was the Moslem capital and
Haroun-al- Raschid stiu ruled over a coun-
try which though already stripped Of its
ancient splendor, was nevertheless pros
porous. The Arab poets celebrated and
"The Thousand and One Nights have i'm
mortalzed that glorious era and shown
the beauty OF that Arabian civilization
which. when at its very height, was de-
stroyed in the thirteenth century by the
barbarous Mongol Houlazon. At Bagdad
he left not so much ms a single stone rest
ing upon another, and the legend relates
that for several days the Tigris ran black.
stained by the ink from the millions OF
manuscripts that had been thrown into It.
When the first locomotives spout smoke
in the desert where the Bedouins are today
the masters they will doubtless take ia
their heels. Quite untamable are these saw
age folk, avid Of infinite space and liberty
for forty centuries and more the proximity
OF the most varied civilization has left
them unchanged and what they are today
they were at the dawn of the ages-the
same hungerers after free spaces and un'
broken horizons.
But at no very great distance away there
are millions Of men OF different blood, who
view life from another angle and are ready
TO take a hand in the work of civilization
and progress. What with descendants Of
the Assyrians, the Greeks and the Per,
SLAMS and what with semi-civiized Arabs
and immigrants from India. Egypt and
Syria, the country rejuvenated and re-
? vivihed by modern science, will not lscl
population.
The transit OF Europe as far as Constau
tnople has long been an accomplished fac
and from there on to the Persian gulf IN,
problem has been theoretically solved since
November q, 1879, when the sultan issueS
an trade granting German company thu
: right to build and operate this new line
Already over 5O0 miles are open to eN
ploitation from the Asiatic shore OF tn,
: Bosphorus. opposite Stamboui, and a few
9 hundred yards from II. all the way 4
Eregli. IN the heart of Asia Minor Bu
0 at that point rises the lofty mountain rang
: OF the Taurus, The original funds hav
= given out, the financiers have failed 4
= reach an agreement for new funds and
e an even worse obstacle, It seems. thar
the granite barrier of the Taurus-Euro
pean competition is calling halt In tn
progress Of the enterprise. Chicago Chron
icle.