about 300 miles, and the area traversed by the Shatt-el-Arab is slowly extending at the rate of a mile every thirty years or so, as a result of the steady accumulation of silt and mud carried down by the Tigris and Euphrates.  When Sumeria was beginning to flourish, these two rivers had separate outlets, and Eridu, the seat of the cult of the sea god Ea, which now lies 125 miles inland, was a seaport at the head of the Persian Gulf.  A day’s journey separated the river mouths when Alexander the Great broke the power of the Persian Empire.

In the days of Babylonia’s prosperity the Euphrates was hailed as “the soul of the land” and the Tigris as “the bestower of blessings”.  Skilful engineers had solved the problem of water distribution by irrigating sun-parched areas and preventing the excessive flooding of those districts which are now rendered impassable swamps when the rivers overflow.  A network of canals was constructed throughout the country, which restricted the destructive tendencies of the Tigris and Euphrates and developed to a high degree their potentialities as fertilizing agencies.  The greatest of these canals appear to have been anciently river beds.  One, which is called Shatt en Nil to the north, and Shatt el Kar to the south, curved eastward from Babylon, and sweeping past Nippur, flowed like the letter S towards Larsa and then rejoined the river.  It is believed to mark the course followed in the early Sumerian period by the Euphrates river, which has moved steadily westward many miles beyond the sites of ancient cities that were erected on its banks.  Another important canal, the Shatt el Hai, crossed the plain from the Tigris to its sister river, which lies lower at this point, and does not run so fast.  Where the artificial canals were constructed on higher levels than the streams which fed them, the water was raised by contrivances known as “shaddufs”; the buckets or skin bags were roped to a weighted beam, with the aid of which they were swung up by workmen and emptied into the canals.  It is possible that this toilsome mode of irrigation was substituted in favourable parts by the primitive water wheels which are used in our own day by the inhabitants of the country who cultivate strips of land along the river banks.

In Babylonia there are two seasons—­the rainy and the dry.  Rain falls from November till March, and the plain is carpeted in spring by patches of vivid green verdure and brilliant wild flowers.  Then the period of drought ensues; the sun rapidly burns up all vegetation, and everywhere the eye is wearied by long stretches of brown and yellow desert.  Occasional sandstorms darken the heavens, sweeping over sterile wastes and piling up the shapeless mounds which mark the sites of ancient cities.  Meanwhile the rivers are increasing in volume, being fed by the melting snows at their mountain sources far to the north.  The swift Tigris, which is 1146 miles long, begins to rise early in March and reaches its