Evening star., 1952-06-11

VIC oI10I1AuldI DCuOUIIl tI1UC, OIlc
of the two great Iraqui Nomad
groups, on their annual move
Inorthward toward water and grass.
They were moving with hun
dreds Of camels and thousands of
fat-taiIed sheep and black goats.
Yelled women rode the camels Sit
ting the Hawdej, a canopied chair,
atop their household goods of
|parti-colored rugs and mats and
blankets. Somewhere. miles away
across the desert. the great pro-
Icession Of beasts and people-the
Icamels with their strange tortoise
like heads, the sheep like moving
dunes of sand on sand, the shawl
swathed men. black-veiled women
and brown, barelegged children,
would come to rest again in tSeir
great black tents; there they would
stretch their rugs. brew their cof-
fee, roast their fatted lambs and
say their flve-times-a-day prayers
and, as it is, so has it been for
hundreds Of years.
Yet. over their heads airplanes
and helicopters might be fighting
the locust invasion. as they are
as I write. For this is a year of
the locusts. and in Cairo. the
Prime Minister. discussing world
affairs. lifted his telephone. spoke
rapidly in Arabic, replaced it and
sat back with a smile. 1.-THE 10
Gusts have changed their course;
the wind has shifted; they are not
headed for Egypt"
Iraq has the most modern sys-
tenn Of locust fighting in the
world.
In its capital, Baghdad, a rap
idly expanding city sets villas as
lovely as any in California cheek
by joWel with thatched mud huts.
On mud flats on the city outskirts
squatters live in a squalor unpar-
allied. and not far away one visits
a tuberculosis sanitarium which
is. ! am sure, one Of the finest
and most beautiful anywhere in
the world. The eagerly curious
visitor can pick his way through
streets so narrow one must hug
the walls to avoid pack horses
that jostle pedestrians walking
under jutting balconies that al
most touch overhead in a teeming
inner city. But a short drive will
take one to low-cost housing de-
velopment obviously planned by
highly gifted modern architects:
streets Of three room, kitchen
and-bath houses, each with a
shaded porch 10 front and a
walled garden at the back from
which run stairs to the roof
where. in summer, all the family
sleep at night under the stars:
arcades Of shops; a handsome
community center; and parks and
flower-gardens laid out.
X ~
In a modern Office, one can
bend over charts and plans pre-
pared by the Iraqui DEVELOPMENT
Board. for the spending over the
coming years Of 10 per cent of
1raq's immense oil income on
public works, and land reclama-
ton and land reform; and one
can sit in the long nights in the
coffee houses and tea gardens
along the Tigris and Euphrates,
all twinkling with colored lights,
and watch professional Homers
tell to enraptured audiences the
tales OF the Arabian Nights-and
sometimes the police must. inter-
fere to separate the story tellers,
contending over the merits of
their favorite heroes whose ex-I
ploits are remembered from mil
lenial time.
AA*
This is the oldest part Of the
world-Iraq; Mesopotamia. Legend
seekers will take you to what they
claim was the Garden Of Eden.
This is the country Of Abraham,
of Ur Of the Chaldees, ancestor
.of Hebrew and Arab alike. It is