The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-12-27
A Yankees Troubles in
Bagdad
Continued from Page One.)

green grass that | know. and that is
tenderly cared for and has been
raised by hand" by the British con
sui in his back yard at Bagdad.
Yet the desert, to those who have
once come under the mysterious spell
Of its infinite spaces and its vast ST.
lence, is the same the world over
In Death valley, on the Sahara, on
the fringe of the Great Desert OF
Cobb whose hot winds scortch China s
great wall. have felt it's clutch. And
SO now. when | venture forth through
the ancient portals of Bagdad, city
of the desert, | fell the magic spell
the perfect thralldom of the waste
places of the world, the land of dead
! things-of sage, sun and sand. This
then, is why Bagdad died The des-
ert killed it. The ancient waters
| failed and as the rivers dried up and
the canals ran empty, the whitening,
| blighting hand Of the great Arabian
desert to the south stretched steadily
forth, closed upon Bagdad, and the
vast gardens which flourished in
NebuchadeZZar's time persisted from
the earth.
The Bible will tell you this same
stOry-that is, that in the long ago
Mesopotamia was the "granary of the
world"
If you want more proof, follow me
from Bagdad to Babylon, thirty miles
south. On every side rise up massive
ruins, bearing mute testimony to an
architecture which even the ravages
of 1000 years have not totally de-
stroyed. To north and south run
in places with the drifted sand of
centuries, but marking what was in
medieval times the "laterals'' which
drew water from the Tigris and Eu-
pirates. and irrigated this now arid
region. In the same way, centuries
from now. Chinese wandering jour-
nalists may write of California or
OregOn-Our irrigated regiOns-and
prove as | am trying to do that in
ancient times those districts in Amer
lea really amounted to something.
The unspeakable age of all things
about Bagdad repeatedly impress
themselves on you. The other night
| visited one of the numerous coffee
houses. See that brick there with
the writing on 1.-THE one the arch
aeOlogist fellows call written
stones, said young engineer with
whom | was talking. well, there are
a lot Of 'em around here like that:
that hieroglyphic looking symbol is
old ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS name. He was
a bully good brick maker, proud of it
and during his reign all bricks made
for use at Babylon, or in the famous
hanging gardens, had to have his
If Nebuchadnezzar were turned
out TO eat grass with the wild asses
today he would be out of luck. For
there is no grass. But the asses are
here in plenty. though no longer very
wild Long trains of patient. .
thoughtful looking creatures. pick
ing their way across the desert. look
from afar like creeping centipedes. /
Between donkeys and camels Bag
dads trade with outlying desert
from the Persian frontier. Huge
bales Of Persian rugs doomed high on
their backs; some carried rolls of
gum tragacanth for the chemists
shops of Europe To me a long
necked. slow stepping camel, with
legs like stills, always re-
Semble some giant crab or beetle,
with its mind on things afar off. And
none the less interesting are the
Beduoin camel drivers. who. through
Ong association on the lonely
stretches of the desert, seem much
ike camels themselves, in disposition
1t least. In fact, so l am told. they
actually have in their limited Ian
5uage several gutteral sounds called
camel words" being limitations of
noises made by the camel
when it wishes to convey a certain
IeSire-as for water once a month
II to intimate that its pack is hurting
is back. These camel drivers all 90
rmed, though some of their shooting !
rons are entitled to places of honor
n the worlds museums. The desert
; not without its dangers. for here
owe the free-boOting Arabs, ungov-lI
rned and ungovernable. taking toll |
rom Christian and pagan alike.
'uedal warfare and tribal quarrels
etween these nomadic tribes keen
he caravans in and out of Bagdad
ways on the alert. Every once in
while the solitary rider who car
les the desert mail bag from Bagdad
, the Mediterranean country fails to
rive. He has some 600 miles of
olitary travelling to accomplish in
tile over nine dayS-rather a siren III