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Show f Tr) ROUTS 1 TO r y ih, kf Along the Tigris. W-IIEN British guns came pounding at the age-old walls of Bagdad, ancient home of Sinbad the Sailor and Haroun-al-Raschid, a new epoch began in the history of this long dormant dor-mant middle East. The romantic city of golden minarets and languorous dreams awoke to new life to play a big, eventful part in the giant upheaval that is changing the map of the world. Gone forever, now, Is that favorite phrase, "The Changeless East," says a writer in the Los Angeles Times. Today the British hold Mesopotamia, the richest province In the Ottoman empire. They have built their own railroad rail-road from the Persian gulf to Bagdad through GOO miles of changing landscape land-scape a landscape of dense date groves, of fertile fields, of wild marshes, marsh-es, and sandy desert. Bagdad, the key to the middle East, Is theirs. The Bagdad route proper begins at Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople on the Asiatic side of the Bosporous, runs southeast of Aleppo, thence off east to the Euphrates and Tigris country with network of branches and thence south along the winding Tigris to the hot waters of the Persian gulf. For sheer human interest, no trip In the world can compare with a journey jour-ney over the route of the Bagdad railway. rail-way. And, when the great war has ended, and trippers are again making the tour of the world, It is inevitable that hordes will forsake the Suez route to go by rail via Nineveh, Bagdad, and the old Garden of Eden. Region Older Than History. It is a region that was old when history his-tory began the veritable cradle of the race the home of the Phoenicians, the , "Ibrahim" (Abraham), living now Just as they did in Christ's time, slaying sheep to seal a vow, or bind a contract. The tourist of the future, going around the world by way of the Bagdad railway, rail-way, can get a stopover at old Nineveh, Nine-veh, the same Nineveh that was destroyed, de-stroyed, and from whose startling ruins Layard dug up the "Creation Tablets," odd cuneiform records telling of the making of man, of his fall, and of the overwhelming world flood. You cross the great wheat plains of Celicia, where St. Paul was born, and pass through Haran, the town from which Abraham started on his voyage of exploration ex-ploration to the Land of Canaan. Scenes Along the Tigris. As your train winds along the" swift, muddy Tigris, you will see Arabs traveling trav-eling by "kelek," which is a raft of poles supported by the Inflated sEins of goats. These same old rafts, by the way, are pictured on the inscribed walls of Nineveh. These same picture walls show men crossing the river by the aid of Inflated goat skins, each man supporting himself on a skin and paddling pad-dling with his hands as a child paddles In his swimming pool with "water-wings." "water-wings." And to this day, at Mossul (which Is opposite old Nineveh), the Arab workmen cross the river by means of these skins. From faraway Persian provinces, from Kurdestan and mountain countries long camel caravans cara-vans come trekking In, bringing wool, hides, carpets and skins of dates. And when they go back, they carry cases of American kerosene, or bales of "piece goods" from Manchester, or c,ube sugar from France. Nearing Bagdad, the river towns take on an air of greater bustle. The people will no longer throw rocks, or 3 k s 3 Scene in Bagdad. Chaldeans, the Assyrians and I'.aby-I I'.aby-I lonians. And remnants of some of j these old races are still found there, j living now as they lived so many thou-' thou-' sands of years ago. Among the desert j Bedouins the covenant of bread and : salt is still kept, and the law of asylum j Is strictly observed. If you are being pursued by an enemy, you can run into an Arab's tent, and claim asylum. And your enemy cannot follow you to this haven; your host, too, is bound by the law of the desert to protect you to fight for you if he must and, after you have eaten a meal with him, he is further bound to respect your person and property for 24 hours after your departure. But by another law of the desert, when you have gone 24 hours from your host's tent, it is quite good form for him to chase you, and to kill ill d rob you, if the whim seizes him. In these Mesopotamian towns, too, live thousands of Jews, dressed In flowing white gowns and sandals, call-lug call-lug each other "Yusuf" (Joseph) and run shrieking at sight of the train and the "ferenghies" (foreigners). They will come peddling till manner of edibles, ed-ibles, from curdled camel-milk to Turkish Turk-ish nougat and pistachio nuts. And In Hie crowded, dusty bazaar streets roofed over like tunnels to keep out the beat you will see offered for sale hand sewing machines, "dollar watches," watch-es," graphophones and tons of gaudy calicoes. There Is another class of tourists, also, who stream across Mesopotamia by tens of thousands, every year. And. to handle this tralllc, the far-sighted Germans planned a branch railroad from the Persian frontier down (o Bagdad, Bag-dad, thence southwest through old Babylon to the holy cities of Kerbola and Nedjef. The Shia pilgrims, this strange tourist horde is called, and from tills pilgrim trade alone the Bagdad Bag-dad railway will when open to normal nor-mal trallic derive millions of dollars a year. These Shlas are the "dissenters" of the Mohammedan faith. |