Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-07-22
#iseellaneuus geadins.
BOOM AT BAGDAD
Land Of Abraham Transformed by
Modern Institutions. .....

Land of Abraham Transformed by
Modern Institutions.
The Holy Land is waking up. A
'boom"-a regular Yankee fever of
progress and construction-has brok-
en- out in Palestine and swept east to
ancient Chaldea, where even the old
Garden Of Eden is being irrigated and
put back on the map and the market
/ Outside the crumbled walls of Nine
veh. Yankee moving machines are
humming in wheat fields that cover
the bones Of kings. Down on the big
Buphrates irrigation dam cube con-
crete mixers from Chicago are busily
digesting old bricks, taken from the
walls Of Nebudchadnezzars palace at
ruined Babylon. Aleppo, so long a
sleepy, Old World Syrian town." is
Ilplanning $5,OO0,000 union depot, and
low speed Jerusalem donkeys are now
lodging the noisy motorcycles Of
nervous tourists-doing Palestine "on
the high"
| In the date gardens around Bagdad,
where for 1000 years the Arab farmer
was content with his rude "cherrid"-
Gan ox-power goatskin and windlass
device for lifting 4rrigating water.)
over 400 English gas engines now puff
away. pumping water from the ancient
Tigris. On this same historic stream
motor boats from Racine sputter
about among high-pooped Arab "safi-
mas" and "buggalows"-stil built just
as in Sinbad's golden age. In the dark,
narrow, camel-smelling bazaar streets
of Bagdad 1 saw Yankee sewing ma
chimes, dollar watches, safety razors
and American patent medicines, offer
ed for sale beside costly Persian rugs,
bronzes, sticky native candy, and
prayer.bricks made from the holy dirt
OF Moslem graveyards. BY one cable
order Bagdad importer bought fifty
American reapers, for use in Assyri-
an wheat fields. ..
From this region-made famous by
New Testament history-the stagna-
ton Of centuries Is passing and travel
writer's can no longer dub 1t Change
less and inert"
ITS a railroad-the same magic
power that built up our vast west
that's rousing this long dormant region
Of the middle west. It's great
railroad, too, greater far in possibili-
ties than even the famous Russian road
across Siberia The "Bagdad Railway"
this singularly significant road Is call
| ed, and already 1t Is half-completed.
| When finished 1t will stretch 1870
miles-from Scutari to Basra on the
| Persian Gulf, the old "Balsora" Of
Sinbad the Sailors tales. From the
Mediterranean to the Buphrates, now
spanned by temporary bridge, the
line is in operation, and on three sec
tions under construction $4,000 men
are steadily at work. From the Eu-
pirates the route pushes east to Mo-
sul-on the site Of old Ninevah-
thence down the classic Tigris to Bag
dad and Basra-
One hundred million dollars Is what
this road will cost Turkey, and Ger
many is building it. Every tool, tie,
rail, and piece Of structural steel
comes from the Fatherland. Thous-
ands of engines and cars, including
splendid diners and sleepers, are be-
ing built in Germany for this line, and
all the engineers are Germans, these
benefits accruing to Germany under
the terms of the concession. Bagdad,
Mosul, Aleppo, HONS, Konia-all
towns on this railway route-are full
of white-helmeted, kaiser r-mustached
German engineers, with their pipes
and beer and native servants.
From Bagdad to Basra-the last 500
miles of the roads course to the east
ern sca-the British will do the work,
and this section will be operated as an
international line." The British de-
manded this arrangement, because OF
the blood and gold they split in sup
pressing piracy in the Persian Gulf,
and opening that region to commerce
In Mesopotamia 80 per cent Of all
trade Is in British hands, and all Bag
dads foreign commerce Is hauled up
and down the Tigris on flat-bottomed,
side wheel, Mississippi-type Of steam
ers, owned by a London company
One Yankee firm, established in Bag
dad merely to buy licorice root for fla
voring chewing tobacco made in the
United States, ships out whole car
goes of its juicy product on these
boats. Till now this fleet of Tigris
boats has had no competition, but it is
easy to see that the new railway, with
it's quick, cheap freight haul from the
Bosphorus, will give the Germans a
firm foothold. And where 1t once took
three weeks of perilous caravan travel
to go from Bagdad overland to Smyr-
ma, the railroad will take you in two
or three days. In days gone by al
goods from Persia for Europe came
out to Bagdad by caravan, down the
Tigris, and thence by the Persian Gulf
Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Suez Ca
nal to European ports. But the Ger
man railways spur from Bagdad to
the Persian frontier will absorb al
this important trade-as well as some
100000 Shia pilgrims who annually
plod down from Kurdistan en- route to
Holy Kerbela, southwest of Bagdad.
With this railway through the Holy
Land comes that second magic power
in desert regions-the irrigation ditch
About the old city of Babylon, below
Hit on the Euphrates. where Bible
students agree the original Garden OF
Eden was located, q vast irrigation
project is being developed, 5000 Arat
workmen, directed by British engi-
neers, are cleaning out the old laterals
and canals with which Nebudchadnez-
Zar watered this Babylonian plair
centuries ago, and in the Euphrates al
Hindieh an enormous dam of concrete
and American interlocking steel piles
is being built. You can ride for hours
about this fiat, rich, but long empty