The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1912-01-05

liam OF being an lCOnOC1fSC, II may be
said that the bricks were taken from
their original site 80 years ago by the
Turkish government, which tried to
build dam that would send the wa
ters Of the Euphrates once more past
Babylon, or, what meant more to 1t,
past the modern town of Hillah.
Making the Garden OF Eden Bloom.
Sir William Willcocks, like all arch
aelogists and students of the Bible,
locates the Garden OF Eden in the
Tigris- Euphrates delta. Sir William
fixes the site at a point west of Hit,
the famous springs from which both
antiquity and modern times secured
vast supplies Of bitumen. These smok
Ing and forbidding regions are said by
some to have given the ancients their
figure of the angels with the flaming
swords at the gates of the garden.
No doubt is entertained by the arch
biologists that 1t was in this region
that civilization had its birth. Here
were the great empires of antiquity
From beneath the drifted dust and
sitting mud of Mesopotamia the schol-
ars with spades are digging up the
wonderful stories Of Babylon, Niffur
Tello, Ninevah and Asshur, while
other tells" or mounds, such as mark
the site of Ur Of the Chaldees, the city
Of Abraham's ancestors, await the
coming OF archaeological expeditions.
Tho Garden Made a Desert.
AS every traveller in this part of the
world has remarked, the Moslem is
not builder, but waster. The
statement Is commonly made concern
ing the Arab, but 1t Is equally true
Of tho Turk. 1t seems as If the ia
.alism and physical excuses Of Mo-
aammedanism cut the nerve Of initia-
i've and endeavor. Certainly the fol-
lowers OF the Prophet found this re-
gion a garden; but they have made 1t
desert l have travelled over a con-
siderable part of Mesopotamia, by
Kelek, horse, wagon, donkey, small
boat and afoot. Everywhere the same
story is repeated. 1t is sll poverty,
ruin and desolation. The Arabs live
In the same black tents that Solomon
sang about, or else in miserable mud
novels. They have none of the con-
veniences of civilization. Life Is a
hand-to-mouth existence. The appli-
ances of agriculture are primitive be-
yond belief-a small triangular
shovel, little hoe about the size and
shape OF an adze, and a sharpened
stick for plow
Only a small strip of territory, lying
along the rivers, or the few subsidiary
canals that remain, Is cultivated. Wa
ter Is raised by tho "cherit," leather
bucket let down to the stream. and
hauled up by oxen, donkeys, camels
or cows. The process is cumbersome,
expensive and inadequate. In a few
places oil engines and pumps made In
Britain and America, have displaced
the cumbersome cherit, and 1t seems
inevitable that they should become
general In the new day that is dawn
ing for Mesopotamia.
Back of these cultivated areas lies
the Mesopotamia desert. / have
traversed sections of 1t where not
plant bigger than the camel thorn
could be seen. 1t looks quite as DESC
late as the sandy Arabian desert to
the west Of the Euphrates. Yet 1t is
every foot good gray earth, friable
and productive, needing only water to
make 1t pour forth crops to enrich the
markets of civilization and to deliver
the present population from dire pow
erty. And the water Is still available,
as fully as 1t was when this region
was the worlds granary.
The Father of the Nile DAMS" Sir
n''12'io'o'nu W #lcocka Who has also had