The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-26
BRITISH TAKE SITE
 OF GARDEN 0F EDEN Capture Basra Just Below
 Mouth of Euphrates SINBAD THE SAILOR Place From Which He Sailed to En-
sINBAD THE SAILOR
Place From Which He Sailed to En- counter His Marvellous Adventures. Queer People Live There Who
 Worship John the
 Baptist

Cairo, December 1e.-( Especial. )--rn capturing Basra, just below the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the British now have the satisfaction of controlling the spot where God is pop ularly supposed to have created Adam Basra is also the place from which the ship of Sinbad the Sailor carried him on his amazing adventures.
 From a political point of view Hasra Is important because the Germans in tended to end their Bagdad railroad there. It is the center of the worlds date trade.
 Basra is on the Shatt- LII l-Arab. an estuary formed of the combined wa ters of the Tigris, Euphrates and Ka- run rivers. The shah" empties into the Persion gulf.
 The British already controlled Fao, cable station on the gulf From here the date expedition proceeded up the western or Turkish bank of the Shatt. The beautiful date palms line the wa terway.
 The bank on the eastern side forms
 one edge of Adagan Island. tradition
 ally the site of the Garden of Eden but
 now boasting principally the reflneries of the Anglo-Persian oil company. The oil runs down 150 miles from the Bak- hitiari mountains of Persia, where crude petroleum gushes from the ground in abundance.
 Another site on the way to Basra l Is the home of the powerful Sheikh of ,, Mohammera. The British steamers al ways fire a salute when passing be- l cause the Sheikh once came to the res cue of British boat attacked by pir- ates near his home.
 Basra itself is on the southern side of the river. It is entirely modern, the old city of Basra from which Sinbad the Sailor made his seven voyages be. ing now good four miles inland Old Basra. now called Zotbeir, was fin thoso days-for Sinbad is not an entirely fic- | titious character-on the sea or at
 least on the salt tide that ebbed and flowed along the Khor Abdulla. then | the chief mouth of the Euphrates The | most conspicuous buildings in Basra
 are the British consulate as sturdy yerandahed house, that. properly nand-
 bagged. could give a good account oi | itself against mere rifle fire and tne Lynch offices almost next door A lit- 1 tie farther upstream is the Ashar T creek that extends for some distanc. | southward from the river. 1t is crowded | with boats of all sizes. from canoes .o | bungalows, and on the south ca stern
 side is kind of promenade between
 the creek and row of tumbl adown | houses which represent the the Picca- dilly of Basra.
 Away in old Basra there is not much
 to see except the minaret of Bash Ay.
 van. which is. perhaps, $50 years old | and has picturesque courtyard. Moth ing, unfortunately, recalls the Basra ci | Sinbad any more than modern Baehdad l ranrQSenta the RaRhdud nf nj | Caliph Harun err -Raschid, except the 1 direction of the streets and one lumI | of hard patchwork, which is, alas! fast dropping into the Tigris. But the date | gardens between Old and New i;asra
 have special interest of their own for 1t was from the clay between the | roots of a date palm at Basra that Je. l hovah gathered the clay with which he | fashioned Adam in the Garden of Eden l For this reason the devout Mohamedar will never abuse his date trees, how.
 ever much they fail him, for the com
 mand in the Koran runs: Respect tn,
 date palms. for they are your annts.
 Gibbon mentioned "rhe Christians O. St. John of Basra." These are the Seb aeans, a strange race that lives in tn, | Euphrates' bed, and. besides dair, farming, earn livelihood by makins
 the one remaining mystery of meta | work in the world They execute bean tifu1 Niello designs in silver, gold ant
 black and would die rather than sur
 render the secret of the workmanship
 They are quaint folk if only becaus, they believe that St. John the Baptis was the real Messiah. and worship onl,
 him--and the pole star. They keep Ihei
 doctrines as much secret as thei. met allurgy, but certain tenets are admittc.
 by them which link them not only witt
 Christianity and Gnosticism, but will
 Islam and Zoreastrianism.