NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13226, 11 July 1906, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY.

Children of all sizes and of all countries will be delighted to hear from Professor Ramsay that the Bagdad railway promises to restore to th© City of Haroun al Ras'chid her long-lost splendour. A transformation more wonderful than any recorded in the "Arabian Nights;'' maj yet be wrought around the tombs of Haroun and his consort Zobeidah. Since the city sprang suddenly into existence i» 766 it has been .visited by every variety of the Oriental tyrant. Those threeruffians— grandson of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and the Turkish Emperor Amurath IV. —exhibited iheir skill from time to. time upon the limbs of tin.-, wretched inhabitants. It was not till 1750 that the Porte was persuaded to appoint th.3 pasha nominated by the city, and a. period of peace, tempered by pestilence, permitted the bazaars to resume something of their ancient magnificence. Our own East India Company contributed not a. little to l< c glory of. modern Bagdad by mamt-a-niug in princely style an English resident, with a. huge establishment. The capital of the great Empire of the Caliphs, when the railway is completed, may have to light for supremacy with Basra, which, as the terminus of the line, occupies a threatening position. To the Cook's tourist also tin's famous*city by the mouth of the Tigris offers allurements that the narrow and filthy streets of Bagdad, with all then rich merchandise, cannot offer. 'For the country round the Bay of Bussora is. regarded by all Arabs, and many travellers of other countries, as one of the most beautiful regions in the world. Were the Sultan and the pasha* as ivjt.e as the ancients who irrigated the. neighbouring lauds- along the kinks of the Euphrates and the Tigris this corner of the Turkish dc"minions might 'become a second Egypt for fertility. Perhaps the tide-washed canals that now run through the Arabian Venice may yet, under the influence of the- new railway, extend themselves to the ruined cities of the- Plain, and charm them backto some shadow of their former Babylonian greatness. % THE* POPE'S LONELINESS. According to the Rome correspondent ef the London Daily Chronicle, Pope Pius X.. is not only showing evidences of the rapid encroachment.'; of old age, but is sufferine from the effects of what is practically 0 boycott set up by the Cardinals. Says the correspondent: "The Pope's characteristic weariness if, intensified, and he look-; every bit the septuagenarian lie recently became. Moreover—what is not so generally known—Pope Pius, besides the real or imaginary sorrows., of Christendom that weigh upon his Pontificate, is profoundly afflicted by the systematic boycottto which lie is actually subjected by the very great majority of the Cardinal* resident in Rome, who altogether disapprove of Pius X.'s policy, methods, and manners, and neve)' darken his dwelling nor, that oi t!i<: still more abhorred Cardinal Secretary of State, save when obliged thereto by strict '.duty. Some days ago I met in the Vatican courtyaid a well-known Papal. dignitary, who said to me, '1 was just p . • ■.•."■-■

I uresltig mi b»* V'tmne oter phi* filftee ;,i!K<? t'»/»- •■!'? day*-.of f<'" ! XII f., laud on lire thfir roft^uivt few .ern..*;: | !rf!» : n«l?, [diplomats/ .-did great V! >p*e 'oi every Sort J And 'now .In'.think''of. t?se sad'abandonment jin which ".. this good-hearted . biit- weakj metal' Pontiff.-: »$ felt' ''..Titer?, ore newly I s*) Cardinals '.'. domiciled id ', fcfcis Eternal City, but they are. no longer. Pop*** eoun«di«nC Not. » Cardinal's. Carriage rattle* willingly across I 'the ■ courtyard to-' the * Pope's door bat those ox the two' exxremista j Oregfia d.I San Stcfeuao and Vives y Tut©." i No wonder, then, that Pius X. sighs 10? I the Venetian lagoons. Meanwhile dp is ; pining to death amidst the'unwelcome .«oK | aide.? of the Vatican.' '.".-'.