e of "eating the hours,"
as the natives say. One could sit indefinitely in a coffee-house and watch
the throngs go by--the stalwart Kurdish porter with his impossible loads,
the veiled women, the unveiled Christian or lower-class Arab women, the
native police, the British Tommy, the kilted Scot, the desert Arab, all
these and many more types wandered past. Then there was the gold and
silver market, where the Jewish and Armenian artificers squatted beside
their charcoal fires and haggled endlessly with their customers. These
latter were almost entirely women, and they came both to buy and sell,
bringing old bracelets and anklets, and probably spending the proceeds on
something newer that had taken their fancy. The workmanship was almost
invariably poor and rough. Most of the women had their babies with them,
little mites decked out in cheap finery and with their eyelids thickly
painted. The red dye from their caps streaked their faces, the flies
settled on them at will, and they had never been washed. When one thought
of the way one's own children were cared for, it seemed impossible that a
sufficient number of these little ones could survive to carry on the
race. The infant mortality must be great, though the children one sees
look fat and thriving.

Baghdad is not an old city. Although there was probably a village on the
site time out of mind, it does not come into any prominence until the
eighth century of our era. As the residence of the Abasside caliphs it
rapidly assumed an important position. The culmination of its magnificence
was reached in the end of the eighth century, under the rule of the
world-famous Haroun-el-Raschid. It long continued to be a centre of
commerce and industry, though suffering fearfully from the various sieges
and conquests which it underwent. In 1258 the Mongols, under a grandson of
the great Genghis Khan, captured the city and held it for a hundred years,
until ousted by the Tartars under Tamberlane. It was plundered in turn by
one Mongol horde after another until the Turks, under Murad the Fourth,
eventually secured it. Naturally, after being the scene of so much looting
and such massacres, there is little left of the original city of the
caliphs. Then, too, in Mesopotamia there is practically no stone, and
everything was built of brick, which readily lapses back to its original
state. For this reason the invaders easily razed a conquered town, and
Mesopotamia, so often called the "cradle