Norwich bulletin., 1920-11-17

distinct dividing line between the Arabic and the Turkish speaking DOT tionS of the former Ottoman Empire. This bou:3uary corresponds with the line c: the Bagdad railway from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. It is for the exploitation of this rich land of Mesopotamia that the famous Bag dad line was built.
 Syria closes the east end of the Mediterranean and is bounded on the north by the Taurus mountains. The Syrian and Arabian deserts limit fur ther settlement to the east and south. But in connection with world com merce it has always been closely re- lated to the fertile to the fertile val ieys of the Nile and the twin Mesopo tanian rivers, and its commercial life of tomorrow cannot be divorced from that of Mesopotamia.
 "Mesopotamia is as fertile today as when 1t was the birthplace of human LA,.ory and when the civilization that de, eIoped there had only the Nile val ley as a competitive field. But, like many parts of the earth once populous and now almost deserted, Mesopotamia is no hallway land. Such regions must either be the uncuitIVated rOam- ing places of nomadic tribes or the seats of settled government anu d centralized state. The inhabitants must either be few enough and mobile enough to seek through migrations the food upon which their fiocks depend or stable enough to keep in repair vast irrigation i systems wh4ch cause heavy crops to follow one another with as s1rlng regularity.
 "Various factors delayed the inevit- 8 ble reopenlng ot the historic trade | I oute across syria and Mesopotamla. | The advance of the Turk threw Eu' | rope back upon itself to develop ln- | tarnaliy, and the discovery or America i turned the attention of its peoples
 away from the spices and wealth ol tae East to the boundieSs resources and rich prizes of the West. The dls- cOVery of the sea route around Afrlca made available a safer passage to opu- ! 'nnt India.
 l Nowhere did trade follow the rail way to a greater extent than along
 tae Bagdad line, and in the spring ol | A314 Aleppo was thriving conner cial center of German trade. At tht
 hotels engineers and merchants crowd e1 the alning rooms and talked of {
 mighty future in Mesopotamia. Ina
 summer, war came, and the burning | question Of styles was rapidly succeed
 ed by one of food enough to keep bod!
 Snd soul together.
 Just south of the Hittite ruins a Carchemish the Ea2dad railway cross
 9s the muddy Euphrates and enters zIesopotami3, Ior the present tn' line to Bagdad and the Persian Gul
 will monopOlize the attention of th'
 road builders; but slowly and surel!
 the iron pathways of commerce vii
 eXtend north to the copper fields O Asia Minor and the rich plains wher'
 Turkish tobacco is grown, up througl , Armenia to the Caucasus, across Per sia to Turkestan, and across Afghan istan or Baluchistan to the gates o India.
 War may not be entirely thin ? of the past, but the Syrian and Meso potamian routes are essential to tn ? commercial and industrial develop
 ment of Europe and the cultural de s yelopment of Asie.
 . 'F'ifty miles west of Bagdad, alon : the Euphrates, lies the region no' Q commonly regarded as the Garden c r i Eden. To irrigate this Eden and | t | reclaim millions of fertile acres aroun
 Bagdad was the stupendous task e l which the Turkish government ad ; l dressed itself.
 { At Mussayeb, on the Euphratek. t pre-war traveller saw 4.000 Arabs dis 0 gfng like moles in the Babylonia e plain, making a new channel-for tn S river. In the dry bed of this artificii