Part 10
What changes of history have left their records in ruins and names and legends on the great alluvial plains of Northeastern Arabia! The two rivers still bear their Bible names, the Euphrates and _Dijleh_, or Hiddekel, but nothing else is left which could be called paradise. What impresses the traveller first and most is that so large an extent of this fertile region lies waste and unproductive under an effete rule. The splendor of the past can scarcely be believed because of the ruin of the present. Everywhere are traces of ancient empires and yet it seems incredible as we watch the half-naked Arabs ploughing through the mud-banks with their wild cattle and primitive implements.
Was this the cradle of the human race? Babylon and Nineveh are here for the archaeologist; Ctesiphon, Kufa and Zobeir for the historian; Bagdad and Busrah (or Bassorah) for old Arabian romance; and Ur of the Chaldees for the Bible student. Since Haroun Rashid went about in disguise how many yet stranger Arabian nights has Bagdad seen! How surprised Sinbad the sailor would be to see the decay of Busrah, yet with a dozen “smoke-ships” in its harbor!
Mesopotamia, called by the Arabs _El Jezira_, was formerly limited to the land lying between the two rivers and south of the old wall by which they were connected above Bagdad. From this point to the Persian Gulf the district was and is still known as Irak-Arabi, to distinguish it from the Irak of Persia. Commonly, however, the name of Mesopotamia (Mid-River-Country) is given to the whole northeastern part of Arabia. It has a total area of 180,000 square miles and presents great uniformity in its physical as well as its ethnical characteristics. Arabs live and Arabic is spoken for three hundred miles beyond Bagdad as far as Diarbekr and Mardin; but we limit our description to the region between Busrah and Bagdad including the delta at the mouth of the rivers.
Near Bagdad the two giant rivers, after draining Eastern Asia Minor, Armenia and Kurdistan, approach quite near together; from thence the main streams are connected by several channels and intermittent watercourses, the chief of which is the Shatt-el Hai. At Kurna the two rivers unite to form the Shatt-el-Arab which traverses a flat, fertile plain dotted with villages and covered with artificially irrigated meadow-lands and extensive date groves. As far up as Bagdad the river is navigable throughout the year for steamers of considerable size. It is entirely owing to the enterprise of English commerce and the Bagdad-Busrah steamship line that the country, so gloomily described by Niebuhr, in 1792, and even by Chesney in 1840, has been developed into new life and prosperity. Even Turkish misrule and oppression cannot do away utterly with natural fertility and productiveness; and if ever a good government should hold this region it would regain its ancient importance and double its present population.
Two features are prominent in the physical geography of this region. First the flat almost level stretches of meadow without any rise or fall except the artificial ancient mounds[36]. The second is the date-palm. The whole length of the country from Fao and Mohammerah to the country of the Montefik Arabs above Kurna is one large date plantation, on both sides of the wide river. Everywhere the tall shapely trees line the horizon and near the lower estuary of the Shatt-el-Arab they are especially luxuriant and plentiful. Formerly every palm-tree on the Nile, was registered and taxed; but to count every such tree on the Shatt-el-Arab would be an unending task.
The proper coat-of-arms for all lower Mesopotamia would be a date-palm. It is the “banner of the climate” and the wealth of the country. There may be monotony in these long groves and rows of well-proportioned columns with their tops hidden in foliage, but there certainly is nothing wearisome. A date garden is a scene of exceeding beauty, varying greatly according to the time of the day and the state of the weather. At sunrise or sunset the gorgeous colors fall on the gracefully pendant fronds or steal gently through the lighter foliage and reflect a vivid green so beautiful that once seen, it can never be forgotten. At high-noon the dark shadows and deep colors of the date-forests refresh and rest the eye aching from the brazen glare of sand and sky. But the forest is at its best, when on a dewy night the full moon rises and makes a pearl glisten on every spiked leaf and the shadows show black as night in contrast with the sheen of the upper foliage.
It was an Arab poet who first sang the song of the date-palm so beautifully interpreted by Bayard Taylor:
“Next to thee, O fair Gazelle! O Bedowee girl, beloved so well,— Next to the fearless Nejidee Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee— Next to ye both I love the palm With his leaves of beauty and fruit of balm. Next to ye both, I love the tree Whose fluttering shadows wrap us three In love and silence and mystery.
Our tribe is many, our poets vie With any under the Arab sky Yet none can sing of the palm but I. The noble minarets that begem Cairo’s citadel diadem Are not so light as his slender stem. He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam glance As the Almehs lift their arms in dance; A slumberous motion, a passionate sigh That works in the cells of the blood like wine. O tree of love, by that love of thine Teach me how I shall soften mine.”
Mark Twain compared the palm-tree to “a liberty-pole with a haycock” on top of it. The truth lies between the poet and the “Innocent” traveller, for the date-tree is both a poem and a commercial product; to the Arab mind it is the perfection of beauty and utility.
The date palm-tree is found in Syria, Asia Minor, nearly all parts of Arabia and the southern islands of the Mediterranean, but it attains to its greatest perfection in upper Egypt and Mesopotamia.[37] Some idea of the immense importance of this one crop in the wealth of Mesopotamia may be gained from the statement of an old English merchant at Busrah, that “the entire annual date-harvest of the River-country might conservatively be put at 150,000 tons.”
The date-tree consists of a single stem or trunk about fifty to eighty feet high, without a branch, and crowned at the summit by a cluster of leaves or “palms” that drop somewhat in the shape of a huge umbrella. Each of these palms has long lanceolate leaves spreading out like a fan from the centre stem which often attains a length of ten or even twelve feet. In a wild state the successive rows of palms, which mark the annual growth of the tree, wither and contract but remain upon the trunk, producing with every breath of wind the creaking sound so often heard in the silence of the desert-night. But where the palms are cultivated the old stems are cut away as fast as they dry and are put to many different uses. The trunk of the palm-tree therefore presents the appearance of scales which enable a man, whose body is held to the tree by a rope noose, to climb to the top with ease and gather the fruit. At a distance, these annual _rings_ of the date-palm appear as a series of diagonal lines dividing the trunk. Palm-trees often reach the age of a hundred years. The date-palm is diœcious; but in Mesopotamia the pistilate-palms far exceed in number the staminate. Marriage of the palms takes place every spring and is a busy time for the husbandman as it is no small task to climb all the trees and sprinkle the pollen.
[Illustration: A DATE ORCHARD NEAR BUSRAH.]
[Illustration: DATES GROWING ON A DATE-PALM.]
Arabs have written books and Europeans have composed fables on the thousand different uses of the palm-tree. Every part of this wonderful tree is useful to the Arabs in unexpected ways. To begin at the top:—The pistils of the date-blossom contain a fine curly fibre which is beaten out and used in all Eastern baths as a sponge for soaping the body. At the extremity of the trunk is a terminal bud containing a whitish substance resembling an almond in consistency and taste, but a hundred times as large. This is a great table delicacy. There are said to be over one hundred varieties of date-palm all distinguished by their fruit and the Arabs say that “a good housewife may furnish her husband every day for a month with a dish of dates differently prepared.” Dates form the staple food of the Arabs in a large part of Arabia and are always served in some form at every meal. Syrup and vinegar is made from old dates, and by those who disregard the Koran, even a kind of brandy. The date-pit is ground up and fed to cows and sheep so that nothing of the precious fruit may be lost. Whole pits are used as beads and counters for the Arab children in their games on the desert-sand. The branches or palms are stripped of their leaves and used like rattan, to make beds, tables, chairs, cradles, bird-cages, reading-stands, boats, crates, etc., etc. The leaves are made into baskets, fans and string and the _bast_ of the outer trunk forms excellent fibre for rope of many sizes and qualities. The wood of the trunk, though light and porous, is much used in bridge-building and architecture and is quite durable. In short, when a date-palm is cut down there is not a particle of it that is wasted. This tree is the “poor-house” and asylum for all Arabia; without it millions would have neither food nor shelter. For one half of the population of Mesopotamia lives in date-mat dwellings.
Although everywhere the date-culture is an important industry, Busrah is the centre of the trade, for here is the principal depot for export. The three best varieties of dates known at Busrah are the _Hallawi_, _Khadrawi_ and _Sayer_. These are the only kinds that will stand shipping to the European markets. They are packed in layers in wooden boxes, or in smaller carton boxes. The average export to London and New York from Busrah for the past five years has been about _20,000 tons_, nearly one half of which was for the American market. Other important varieties are _Zehdi_, _Bérem_, _Dery_ and _Shukri_. These are packed more roughly in matting or baskets, and are sent along the whole Arabian coast, to India, the Red Sea littoral and Zanzibar. There are over thirty other varieties cultivated near Busrah for local consumption. Some of them have curious names such as: “Mother of Perfume,” “Sealed-up,” “Red Sugar,” “Daughter of Seven,” “Bride’s-finger,” “Little Star,” “Pure Daughter”; others have names which it is better not to translate.
Palgrave and others, with whose verdict I agree, pronounced the _Khalasi_ date of El Hassa superior to all other kinds. It has recently been introduced into Mesopotamia. Palgrave says, “the literal and not inappropriate translation of the name is ‘quintessence’—a species peculiar to Hassa and easily the first of its kind.” The fruit itself is rather smaller than the usual _Hallawi_ date, but it is not so dry and far more luscious. It is of a rich dark amber color, almost ruddy, and translucent; the kernel is small and easily detached, the date tastes sweet as sugar and is as far superior to the date bought in the American market as a ripe Pippin is to dried apple-rings.
At Busrah the date season opens in September and keeps every one busy until the vast harvest is gathered and shipped. The dates for export to Europe and America are of prime quality, a box of half a hundred-weight on board the steamer is worth about three or four shillings wholesale. All poor, wet, and small dates are packed separately in mats or bags, and are sent to India as second-quality. The poorest lot are sent in mass to the distilleries in England. Thus nothing is lost. Date-packers, who put the fruit in layers, receive three or four _kameris_ for packing a box. The best packers can only pack four boxes a day, so that their wages are about a _kran_ (about ten cents) per day. They live cheaply on the fruit, and bring all their family, babes and greybeards with them to lodge for the season in the date-gardens. The date season in Busrah begins in the early or middle part of September and lasts for six or eight weeks. The price of the date-crop varies. It is usually fixed at a meeting held in some date-garden where the growers and buyers play the bull and the bear until an agreement is reached. The prices in 1897 were, in the language of the trade: “340 Shamis for Hallawis, 280 Shamis for Khadrawis, and 180 Shamis for Sayer.” Seventeen _Shamis_ are equal to about one pound sterling, and the prices quoted are for a _kara_, about fifty hundred-weights.
The culture of the date has steadily increased for the past fifteen years. In 1896 the greater part of the country was inundated by heavy floods and over a million date-trees are said to have been destroyed; new gardens are being planted continually. The Arabs of Mesopotamia display great skill and unusual care in manuring, irrigating and improving their date-plantations, for they realize more and more that this is no mean source of wealth. One recent use to which export dates are put is in the manufacture of vinegar, it would seem, since the beet-sugar industry has proved so profitable, that there must be some method by which good sugar could be manufactured from date-syrup.
Mesopotamia is rich not only in date-groves but in cereals, wool, gums, licorice root and other products. The export of wool alone in 1897 was valued at £288,700. And the total exports the same year, for the two provinces of Bagdad and Busrah, were put at £522,960. Busrah is the shipping place for all the region round about, and ocean steamers of considerable size are always in Busrah harbor, during 1897 four hundred and twenty-one sailing vessels and ninety-five steamships cleared the port, with a total tonnage of 131,846; ninety-one of the steamships were British.
The population of the two vilayets is given by Cuinet, who follows Turkish authorities, as follows:
_Moslems._ _Christians._ _Jews._ _Total._ Bagdad Vilayet, 789,500 7,000 53,500 850,000 Busrah Vilayet, 939,650 5,850 4,500 950,000
In Bagdad vilayet nearly four-fifths of the Moslem population belongs to the Sunnite sect, while in Busrah vilayet three-fourths of them are Shiahs. The Sabeans are generally reckoned among the Christians, although these are already sufficiently divided into Latin, Greek Orthodox, Greek, Syrian, Chaldean Catholic, Armenian Gregorian, Armenian Catholic and Protestants—the last in the smallest minority possible and the others chiefly distinguished by mutual distrust and united hatred of Protestantism.
The vilayet of Bagdad is divided again into three _Sandjaks_ or districts of Bagdad, Hillah and Kerbela, and that of Busrah likewise into those of Busrah, Amara Muntefik and Nejd[38]. Of these six districts that of Bagdad is the largest in area and importance and is the centre of military power for both vilayets. The boundaries of Bagdad Sandjak go as far as Anah on the Euphrates toward the north and include Kut-el-Amara on the south with both banks of the Tigris. Hillah and Kerbela are along the Euphrates with irregular boundaries while the Muntefik Sandjak with its provincial town of Nasariya separates them from that of Busrah. The Sandjak of Amara begins a few miles north of the junction of the two rivers, and the whole frontier toward Persia is entirely undefined or at least “_in litigation_,” as the Turkish official maps have it.
The two Turkish provinces have all the involved machinery of Turkish civil and military administration. There are plenty of offices and office-holders and constant changes in both. Each province has a governor-general or _Wali_ and (outside of the governor’s sandjak) each district has its _mutaserrif-pasha_ either of the first or second class—those one has to deal with generally prove to be of the latter. Then there are _Kaimakams_ for smaller districts or cities, and finally _mudirs_ for villages. At the seat of government, called the _Serai_, there is an administrative council, including the _Näib_ or _kadi_, corresponding to chief-justice; the _defterdar_ or secretary of finance; the _mufti_ or public interpreter of Moslem law; the _nakib_, etc., etc., etc. There are several courts of justice of different rank; the custom-house administration is on the _e pluribus unum_ plan and _ne plus ultra_ system. Besides these there are the “Regie des tabacs” or the tobacco-monopoly, the post and telegraph administration, the sanitary offices, the salt-inspectors, and, at Kerbela, the Tarif of corpses levied on imported pilgrims. To describe all these satisfactorily would require a volume.
XIII
THE CITIES AND VILLAGES OF TURKISH-ARABIA
Kuweit,[39] on the gulf a little south of the river delta, will in all probability—before long, rise in importance and be as well known as Suez or Port Said. It has the finest harbor in all Eastern Arabia, and is an important town of from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. Here will probably be the terminus of the proposed railroads to bind India and the gulf to Europe by the shortest route. The whole country round about being practically desert, the place is entirely dependent on its trade for support. It possesses more bagalows (sailing-vessels) than any port in the gulf; is remarkably cleanly; has some very well-built houses and an extensive dockyard for boat building. The town and tribe are nominally under Turkish subjection, although protection is the better word, and it is rumored that Kuweit will soon be as much in the hands of the English as is Bahrein.
The Bedouin tribes of Northern Hassa, and even from Nejd, bring horses, cattle and sheep to this place to barter for dates, clothing and fire-arms. There is nearly always a large encampment of Bedouins near the town. The route overland from Kuweit to Busrah is across the desert until we come to an old artificial canal; leaving Jebel Sinam to the left the second march brings us to Zobeir, a small village on the site of ancient Busrah, and only a few hours to the present site. At Zobeir is the tomb of the Moslem leader for whom the town is named. The village contains about 400 houses, and the population is rich and fanatical. In the vicinity are gardens where a kind of melon is raised, which is celebrated in all the region round about for sweetness and delicacy of flavor. The journey from Kuweit to Busrah is generally made, even by natives, in bugalows; while the Persian Gulf steamers, not calling at Kuweit, proceed direct from Bushire to Fao, at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab. A great hindrance to commerce is the bar formed by the alluvial deposit of the immense river as it reaches the gulf. At low tide there is only ten feet of water in the deepest part of the channel, and even at flood tide large steamers must plow their way through the mud to reach Busrah.
Fao is of no importance except as the terminus of the cable from Bushire. A British telegraph station was established here in 1864. The Turkish telegraph system from up the rivers terminates at Fao, and here too they have a representative to govern the place and enforce stringent quarantine. The Shatt-el-Arab winds motononously between the vast date-orchards or desert banks for about forty miles, until we reach the Karun river and the Persian town of Mohammerah. Busrah is sixty-seven miles from the bar and between it and Fao there are many important villages on each bank of the river. Aboo Hassib is perhaps the most important and is a great centre for date-culture and packing.
Busrah consists of the native city—containing the principal bazaars, the government house, and the bulk of the population—and the new town on the river. The native town is about two miles from the river on a narrow creek, called _Ashar_; a good road runs along the bank, and this road really unites the two parts of the city into one as it is lined with dwelling-houses for a large part of the way. Busrah has seen better days, but also worse. In the middle of the eighteenth century it numbered upward of 150,000 inhabitants. In 1825, it had diminished to 60,000; the plague of 1831 reduced it further by nearly one-half, and after the plague of 1838, scarcely 12,000 inhabitants remained. In 1854, it is said to have had only 5,000 inhabitants. At present the place is growing yearly in population and importance in spite of misgovernment and ruinous taxation. It has every natural advantage over Bagdad, except climate, and will yet outstrip the city of the old caliphs, if Turkey’s rule mends or ends. The present population of the city proper is given by Ottoman authorities at 18,000. Many ruins all over the plains and in the surrounding gardens tell of its former extent and splendor. At present the native town looks sadly dilapidated, and tells the story of neglect and decay. The unexampled filthiness of the streets and the undrained marshes in the environs make the place proverbially unhealthy. This unhygienic condition is not improved by the Ashar Creek being at the same time the common sewer and the common water supply for over one-half of the population. The wealthy classes send out boats to bring water from the river, but all the poorer people use the creek. Such are the results of an imbecile government which could easily drain the marshes and supply every one with great abundance of pure water.
Ancient Busrah, near the present site of Zobeir, was founded in 636 A. D., by the second Caliph Omar as a key to the Euphrates and Tigris. It reached great prosperity, and was the home of poetry and grammatical learning, as Bagdad was the centre of science and philosophy. After the twelfth century the city began to decay, and at the conquest of Bagdad by Murad IV., in 1638, this entire stretch of country fell into the hands of the Turks. Then the present city took the name of Busrah. Later it was in the hands of the Arabs and Persians, and from 1832 to 1840, Mohammed Ali was in possession. Under the rule of Midhat Pasha, governor-general of Bagdad, the city of Busrah arose in importance partly because of the Turkish Steam Navigation Company which he promoted. But it was a dream-life. English commerce and enterprise aroused the place thoroughly, and the whistle of steamships has kept it awake ever since the Suez canal opened trade with Europe by way of the gulf.[40]