FROM DAMASCUS TO BAGDAD BY AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 309, 31 December 1930, Page 15

FROM DAMASCUS TO BAGDAD BY AIR.

An air mail service has been inaugurated between Damascus and Bagdad. •

- From Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in the world, the aeroplane rises from beneath the hills that surround the city, and turns towards the east for its long five hundred-mile journey across the Syrian desert.

Behind lie the gleaming white buildings of ancient Damascus, where for centuries caravans have halted on their endless voyages. As we rise the noise and hubbub that comes from the narrow twisting streets mingled with the clatter of modern electric tramway cars die away. Stately domes and towering minarets gleam in the strong sunlight and the flat roofe spread out beneath'. As we fly over the eoorehed wastes, where streams and watercourses dry up in the terrific heat and leave no vegeta- ! tion on the burning sands, we must keep our eyes turned northward for a glimpse of the ruins of Palmyra. To-day a heap of ruins and a few Arab hovels around an oasis mark the site of this famous city. Many, hundreds of years ago Palmyra was the meetingplace of the great trade routes for the ports of Phoenicia, from Persia and South Arabia. It became a proud city of Arabian merchant princes, and grew rich on the luxury trades with ancient Rome. At last we reach the valley of Mesopotamia between those, great rolling rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. On the Tigris stands our objective-*-Bagdad, the city of the "Arabian Nights."

Here were the splendours of the Saracen Empire in the glamorous days of the Caliph Haroun Al Kaechid. Before the Turks held sway over'the city, Bagdad was a seat of learning and a busy centre of commerce.

Now, as its squat white houses, its minarets and ancient mosques rush nearer and grow larger under our der scending aeroplane, we may catch a glimpse of the changelessnese of the East.

Bagdad, once a powerful capital, is now a prosperous, war-scarred town of a-quarter of a million inhabitants.