Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1924-12-10

prepared by the National Geographic So
ciety. Washington d. c.
Disputes between Great Britain and
Turkey over the border petroleum
region around Mosul and q general
restiveness to the southeast bring
Iraq repeatedly before a world that
has hardly yet learned the signif-
canoe of this new state name. But
when 1t is explained that "Iraq" is
merely another name for Mesopo-
tamia, now under Arab rule and
British mandate the country is cas-
fly oriented.
Something more than convenience
to the older generations was lost, it
would seem, when Iraq took it's new
name. This Is pre-eminently the land
of the Tigris and Euphrates, and
'Mesopotamia" means between the
rivers"
Gashing the cool highlands of Ar
menia and Kurdistan, the Tigris and
Euphrates flow out upon the ancient
plain where the civilization that mat
ters most to the western world was
born. Within the sweep of their
changing river beds they inclose a
land whose capitals at Nineveh and
Babylon were once the wonders Of
the world.
Near the traditional site Of the
Garden of Eden they unite to worm
their way across a blistering plain on
their way to the hot Persian gulf, or
in flood-time spread across the land
a sea in which their channel is OBJ
scured.
Here patient scholars, using count
less spades in operations for which
a scalpel might we'll prove too crude
a tool, have won back the treasures
of the past and made them speak to
us. And young Rawlinson, on his
way to train the troops of Persia's
shah, Transcribed the inscriptions Of
the Behistun rock, facilitated the de-
cipherment of cuneiform writing, and
so showed back the horizon of world
history by many hundred years.
Here Britain's soldiers and admin
istrators are trying to prepare this
ancient highway for the bustling fu-
ture and a gifted prince of Mecca is
trying to bring prosperity to the re-
born kingdom of Iraq.
Here modern boatmen whirl in
kufas such as men used at the dawn
of time and Kurdish porters introduce
into the racial complex of Bagdad
such faces as one sees portrayed on
old Assyrian tablets antedating Abra-
ham.
Tommy Atkins playing Haroun-al-
Raschid in the tortuous lanes of old
Bagdad, across which New street
cuts it's unromantic way, and wire
less men using the traditional Tower
of Babel as an aerial listening post
seem novel because we still are hyp-
Noticed by the glamor of the past.
The veil Of centuries has added
mystery to a dull and dreary land,
Just rs the Moslem veil has made
each shadowy form, whose flowing
vestments brush US as we pass, fig
ure full Of interest.
A Twilight Land.
Mesopotamia is a twilight land,
never entirely awake and never who'll
ly still. The summer roofs, deserted
TO the sun by day. become alive be-
meath the velvet dome of night, and
the drama of the East gains mystery
from the dim obscurity of It's setting.
Skies so clear that they made as
tronomers of the Chaldeans look
down upon these roofless upper rooms,
i1 Fhn nho nufr fo
and the luminous Milky Way.
Persia has lent her lustrous tiles
and soft carpets from Shiraz and
Hamadan. Turkeys tarbouche adds
its carmine glow to the open-air cafes.
The stately Arab, in head shawl and
cameI-halr crown, sweeps through the
streets with dignity which few can
match.
Copper and brass CLINT from door
knocker and fruit-tray piled high
with lusciousness. The tinkling arm
lets of the women family echo to the
clink of Ice in the huge carafes of
the sherbet vendors.
The hammering of huge caldrons
from soft copper adds its own noisy
note to the chorus. The sharp rap
of markers on the backgammon
boards hints idleness on the part of
some desert son ensnared by city
charms From overhanging balconies
the lattices drip sound muffled by
silks and deep-piled rugs.
In the Occident such colors, sounds
and smells would reach high heaven
by the virtue of barbaric strength