paid by Babylonia and Assyria to the Persians was a thousand talents of silver (nearly a quarter of a million of our money) annually; while the tribute in kind was reckoned at one third part of the contributions of the whole empire.  Yet, despite this drain on its resources, the government was regarded as the best that the Persian king had to bestow, and the wealth accumulated by Babylonian satraps was extraordinary.  Herodotus tells us of a certain Tritanteechmes, a governor, who, to his own knowledge, derived from his province nearly two bushels of silver daily!  This fortunate individual had a “stud of sixteen thousand mares, with a proportionate number of horses.”  Another evidence of the fertility of the region may be traced in the fear of Artaxerxes Mnemon, after the battle of Cunaxa, lest the Ten Thousand should determine to settle permanently in the vicinity of Sittace upon the Tigris.  Whatever opinion may be held as to the exact position of this place, and of the district intended by Xenophon, it is certain that it was in the alluvial plain and so contained within the limits of the ancient Chaldaea.

Modern travellers, speaking of Chaldaea in its present condition, express themselves less enthusiastically than the ancients; but, on the whole, agree with them as to the natural capabilities of the country.  “The soil,” says one of the most judicious, “is extremely fertile, producing great quantities of rice, dates, and grain of different kinds, though it is not cultivated to above half the degree of which it is susceptible.”  “The soil is rich,” says another, “not less bountiful than that on the banks of the Egyptian Nile.”  “Although greatly changed by the neglect of man,” observes a third, “those portions of Mesopotamia which are still cultivated, as the country about Hillah, show that the region has all the fertility ascribed to it by Herodotus.”  There is a general recognition of the productive qualities of the district, combined with a general lamentation over the existing neglect and apathy which allow such gifts of Nature to run to waste.  Cultivation, we are told, is now the exception, instead of the rule.  “Instead of the luxuriant fields, the groves and gardens of former times, nothing now meets the eye but an arid waste.”  Many parts of Chaldaea, naturally as productive as any others, are at present pictures of desolation.  Large tracts are covered by unwholesome marshes, producing nothing but enormous reeds; others lie waste and bare, parched up by the fierce heat of the sun, and utterly destitute of water; in some places, as has been already mentioned, sand-drifts accumulate, and threaten to make the whole region a mere portion of the desert.

The great cause of this difference between ancient and modern Chaldaea is the neglect of the water-courses.  Left to themselves, the rivers tend to desert some portions of the alluvium wholly, which then become utterly unproductive; while they spread themselves out over others, which are converted thereby into pestilential swamps.  A well-arranged system of embankments and irrigating canals is necessary in order to develop the natural capabilities of the country, and to derive from the rich soil of this vast alluvium the valuable and varied products which it can be made to furnish.