Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1924-12-12
auln. Of Library Building 1000 Year. Old, a. Nlppu,

! here they seem a natural attribute 6f
the land of the caliphs
To see Mesopotamia clearly is TO
tear aside the curtain of romance
which exaggerates her charms. Viewed
/, in dispassionate light and by west
ern standards, she cannot be thought
beautiful; but when one let's the an
Client spirit of the land unfold its
spell, the past is eloquent and In the
moonlight of Imagination rude mud
huts become towering, dimly lighted
palaces of the shadowy past.
Mesopotamia can be cold. The salu-
brious winters of the Nile never be-
come so chill. But summer beats
down with violence that makes one
realize that only by the sweat of
many brows was civilization nurtured
here, amid natural forces against
which modern man must needs renew
the fight If the land is once more to
blossom as the rose, with crops three
hundred-fold, such as HerodOtus de-
scribed
Great Northern Plateau.
Far to the north lies the plateau
which stretches from the Taurus to
Mount Ararat, bitter cold in winter,
though with clear sky which makes
the noon delightful, even beside the
ruined homes of Van. In spring warm
rains descend, the summer PUSHES
north, and heavy SHOWS which block
the mountain roads melt quickly on
the slopes, from many of which the
forests have long since disappeared.
Through the rounding country Of
Assyria and the Hittite lands the IL
girls and Euphrates flow, confined by
cliffs and hills to comparatively mar
row valleys; but at the fall-line which
marked the boundary as well as the
difference in geographic character be-
tween Assyria and Babylonia, the
piled-up waters tend to spread across
a wide alluvial plain.
Once the floods were laboriously
tanned and turned aside to reservoirs
and there impounded against a later
need but even then the lower plain
was so submerged that bikes were
built to save the towns and fields from
devastating waters. Now the old
canals are clogged with silt and use
less marshes occupy the field where
a hungry world might win back
spreading granary.
Slowly the rivers are carrying down
their delta to the sea and pushing
back its tides; but man has not kept
pace with this slow growth nor
claimed the land thus made. Opt
mists see the day when the twin riv-
ers, once more tanned, will bring pros
perity through irrigation and drain
age directed by western engineers
Wrestling with the raging waters
and tried by the heat and cold of
savage climate, the Babylonians not
only became strong, but came TO I'M
derstand the irrigation problems
higher up the rivers, and thus sought
to extend their sway over the region
where the water supply could be
! stored up.
Pushing Out the Shore Line.
The rivers offered life and peace in
return for toll. and man gradually
conquered natural forces until great
cities rose above the wide clay plain
and muddy floods. Sumer, Akkad,
Babylonia, Assyria grew through toll
and held their position through con-
slant vigilance on the part of their
people; but the day came when man,
at war with other men, withdrew his
supervision. Silt and flood came
h. ni< cta
hide their corpses under shapeless
mounds.
When one enters the Shat-el-Arab
and passes through the swamps that
lie below Abadan, he realizes that
here the combined Tigris and Eu-
pirates have spewed forth their load
of silt throughout the centuries until
the shore line of the Persian gulf has
retreated for hundred miles.
Ocean liners run up to Basra, a
modern, bustling port on the Shat-el-
| Arab. Here one Is shown the house
| of Sinbad the Sailor, for traditions
live longer than human beings in such
feverish land, and the visitor can
| picture a scene which has not changed
| since the caliphs ruled; but as one
| listens to a camel roaring a useless
| protest In the bazaars, the deep
whistle of a modern steamship booms
forth to remind one that the Twen-
tiefh century cannot wait for dreams,
| Bagdad. with Its melons and kufas'
desert Arabs and yelled women, whose
wells are becoming Interestingly thin