MESOPOTAMIA'S WILD MEN

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 19

MESOPOTAMIA'S WILD MEN

SHIEKS OF AMBY WHERE THE BEDOUINS ROAM “WitE their feet in the water and their heads in hell.” Such is the Arab description of the conditions under which date-palms thrive best. That it is more or less correct is strongly indicated by the fact til at Basra is the world’s greatest date-port, with an export of over 60,000 tons a year, of which Australia takes anything up to a tenth. With a mean daily maximum of 104 degrees F. during July and August, Basra is not as hot as Bagdad (110 F.) or Mosul (109 F.), but the neighboring marshes keep the humidity at a higti level, and the Basra heat is more trying than that of the dryer atmosphere of Bagdad or Mosul. Basra itself is a city of something like 80,000 inhabitants (census returns in Iraq are approximate only), but much of the country round it consists of either marshes or desert. Both in the marshes and in the desert the inhabitants are still in the tribal stage, and many of them are little bettor than savages, though they have in many cases become possessed of modern' weapons. Of this type, no doubt, was the sniper whose stray bullet killed Alan (Jobiiam’s mechanic.

Yet Mesopotamia, of which the plains around Basra form the southern end, is one of the oldest centres of civilisation in the world, exceeded in antiquity, it may he, only by the valley of the Nile. For at least 2,000 years before the time (about 2200 B.O.), when Hammurabi made Babylon the capital of his empire, and drew up a code of laws of which many are startling in their modernity,_ "Mesopotamia has been a centre of civilising influence.

It is true that in the days before Hammurabi the region round Basra was still part of the Persian Gulf. It has been filled up by the vast deposits of alluvial soil brought down by the Tigris and the Euphrates. In Sumerian days the great port was Eridu, 130 miles from the present head of tho Gulf.

Basra itself is eighty miles from tho point at which tho Shatt-el-Arab, the joint estuary of the two great rivers, on which it stands, opens into the gulf. In Babylonian times, however, tho two rivers entered tho gulf by separate mouths. Basra attained to greatness after tho Arabs had conquered Mesopotamia, and it flourished exceedingly in tho days of the Caliph Haroun-a!-Haschid and his successors. _ It was from Basra that Sinbad the Sailor set forth on his seven voyages into tho unknown seas of tho south.

The country round Basra forms the beginning of tho great plain that stretches northward for hundreds of miles, rising very gradually till it is 105 feet above the sea-level at Bagdad, over 300 miles away.

This great alluvial plain has an area r,-f 35,000 square miles, or considerably more than a third of the total area of Victoria. As a rule the ground is highest near the rivers, as a result of the raising of the level of the river beds by tho deposition of. silt, ami slopes gradually away for some distance. One effect of this is that great swamps are formed by the water breaking over the banks in floods and filling the depressions back from the river.

In tho lowest part of the plain between Basra and the gulf, much of tho country is permanently swamp, overgrown ivith tall reeds. The datepalms will not thrive in swamps, though they flourish best on the banks of the rivers and canals, where their roots have easy access to tho water. ,

The marshes are occupied mostly by tho Ma’adan, tho so-called Marsh Arabs, of whose origin the only thing quite certain is that 'they are not Arabs. They live in huts built of reeds and placed on artificial mounds in the swamps, often with a channel down the middle of the village to serve as a street.

These people, who are probably descended from the ancient inhabitants of this part of Mesopotamia, live mainly ly by fishing and on their herds of water buffalo, though they sometimes cultivate a little riec or a few dates. In their light boats they are expert watermen, and traverse the swamps with great skill and daring.

Tho nomad tribes of the open country and the settled agriculturalists along the rivers, like tho townsfolk of Basra, are for. the most part either true Arabs or have a strong infusion of Arab blood. For ages 'there has been a movement from the steppes and deserts of Arabia, sometimes in the shape of inwading hosts, sometimes a slow seeping in of small groups, to the more fertile lands along the two rivers. Tho town Arabs and those settled as agriculuralists are usually peaceful and reasonably industrious. About one-half of the 1,450,000 Arabs in Mesopotamia, however, consist of .nomads and semi-nomad tribes, and it is they who have placed almost insuperable obstacles in tho way of making the country peaceful and prosperous. Though they have lived for so long alongside civilised and settled communities, they remain in the tribal or patriarchal stage. They are supposed to be descendants of Ishmacl, and it is still often true that their hand is against every man’s. Changing Iraq from a Turkish province to an Arab kingdom has made no great difference to tho Bedouin tribes. They still remain jealous of all interference, and retain a rooted objection to the enforcement of Jaw and order. And when tho Arabs who have settled in Mesopotamia give up the nomad life and become farmers or town dwellers thci’e is a_ continual infiltration of nomads from the deserts oi? Arabia, who still retain all the habits and ways of the Bedouins, CREEKS FOR STREETS. One of the Australians who served in Mesopotamia and afterwards stayed there to help with the civil administration, Basil Riley, son of the Anglican Archbishop of Perth, attempted to interest the Commonwealth authorities in a proposal to improve the methods of agriculture in Mesopotamia by training some of the sons of the sheiks in Australia. During tho war period a number of Australian reapers and binders were sent to Mesopotamia, where they did good service in harvesting the crops. Borne of the sheiks took very kindly to these machines, Totalising i.hat the.Vi made it possible to do the harvesting ranch more quickly and efficiently than could be managed with the methods that were used at the time when Abram left Ur of the Chaldees, not a great way from Basra, to journey westward to Palestine.

Mr Riley held that ranch more progress might ho made if a

number of tbo sons of tho Slacks of the Arab tribes were sent to Australia to learn our methods of cultivation and also of stock husbandry. Ho suggested that carefully-selected young Arabs might go to some of our agricultural colleges, and_ later gam practical experience with skilled farmers. . . , But tho nomadic pastoral Arab on tho edges of the Hasra marshes is likely for tho present to go on managing Ins {locks of camels, goats, horses, and fattailed sheep on much the same lines that were fashionable when Jacob kept the flocks of Laban. And from time to time ho will probably continue to vary the monotony of the desert life or of a sojourn amongst the mosquitoes and other vexations of the marshes by rue robbery of caravans, a raid on his settled brethren, or a pot-shot at some aeroplane passing overhead. Meanwhile Australia's most direct link with Basra and its region is the arrival towards Christmas time of one or two ships bringing our year’s supply of dates. And, to quote Mr Riley again, if you like to eat tho dates raw, you should never go to Mesopotamia. Lor the Arabs in some places have a habit of treading the dates down with their hare feet. And even the river Arab is not always a fanatical devotee of washing. But, perhaps, that does not apply to any of the dates that come to Australia. And Basra itself stands on the Shatt-el-Arab like a river Venice, with canals and creeks for streets. And along them the Arabs pole their hellems and ninhailas,.craft that have not altered in any material respect since Hammurabi ruled in Babylon.