The Pulaskian., 1919-11-07

about MoSul Which is Degin-
 ming to show the beneficial ef-
 fects of British control, is it's geographical situation. Mosul is the meeting point of roads and caravan routes from everywhere. They wind in through the mountain passes and over the rocky highland from Diar- bekr and Bitlis, across the great des- ert from Aleppo and over the sands from Persia and Bagdad It's very name, indeed, from the Arabic AL Mousil, 'the place of connecticut tells it's story. And as with roads and car ayan routes, so it will be, some time again in the future in the matter of railways, when the famous Bagdad line is completed, says the Christian Science Monitor. At present Ger many's great effort falls short of Mo- sul by many miles in the west and in the south, and the "ramshackle city," as it has been irreverently called, still depends for it's communi- cations on the road and the caravan route as it has done through the ages
 Of all the cities in the Turkish em- pire, as one writer has well said of it, perhaps Mosul is the one that has been least touched by western civili- zation. Built on ground that once was a suburb of Nineveh, it stands on the western bank of the Tigris, looking across at the mounds which are all that remain of the glories of the capi- tai of ancient Assyria. Nineveh has history that stretches throughout a period nearly two thousand years long, ending with the fall of the em- pire of Sennacherib about the year 600 B. c. From that time until Lay ard unveiled the palaces of Ashur- banipal and Sennaeherib, and un- earthed the literary chamber contain ing the famous deluge tablet the ru- ins of Nineveh for 2,500 long years lave slept undisturbed AS for Mosul itself, it is particularly mentioned in all history since the Arab conquest, and it is eheckered history indeed for it suffered piIlage at the hands of Tamerlane, was besleged by Nadir Shah, and endurad host of other vi- cissitudes
 MosuPs Many storks.
 The old town, with it's strangely narrow streets, even for the east. is surrounded by half-ruined wall, built in modern times as protection against the Shammar Arabs. Every one remarks on the narrow streets of Mosul, on it's white, crumbling houses, on the gypsum dust which falls con stantly from the walls over everything, and upon the storks. Indeed the storks of Mosul are apparently its most remarkable feature.
 Discussing the matter one authority tells how, in the cool of the evening, the citizens of Mosul share their housetops with innumerable storks, 1 who build their ragged nests on the highest places "in utter disregard of | the laws of gravity" Four great, pre- posterous specimens of the species stood, in the early morning, on a wall ! beside the room where he was, he con- tinues, and he dimly realized that | they were performing their morning toilet. They took no notice of him. But loud noise like someone rattling a stick in a wooden bucket attracted his attention. Then somebody else with another bucket made a similar noise in different key, and he won- dered what in the world could they be doing to the buckets. Then it dawned upon him that half the population of Mosul must be rattling buckets, for the sound came from far and near, faint or loud according to distance, , and in hundred different keys. Then came a loud rattle close beside him. seWithin nine feet of him." he says, "stood solemn stork, the toilet over, { his attitude of graceful balance on one {