all sides unbroken by a single irregularity; all places must have
appeared alike, and the traveller can scarcely have perceived his
progress, or have known whither or how to direct his steps. The rivers
alone, with their broad sweeps and bold reaches, their periodical changes
of swell and fall, their strength, motion, and life-giving power, can
have been objects of thought and interest to the first inhabitants; and
it is still to these that the modern must turn who wishes to represent,
to himself or others, the general aspect and chief geographical divisions
of the country.

The Tigris and Euphrates rise from opposite sides of the same
mountain-chain. This is the ancient range of Niphates (a prolongation
of Taurus), the loftiest of the many parallel ridges which intervene
between the Euxine and the Mesopotamian plain, and the only one which
transcends in many places the limits of perpetual snow. Hence its
ancient appellation, and hence its power to sustain unfailingly the two
magnificent streams which flow from it. The line of the Niphates is
from east to west, with a very slight deflection to the south of west;
and the streams thrown off from its opposite flanks, run at first in
valleys parallel to the chain itself, but in opposite directions, the
Euphrates flowing westward from its source near Ararat to Malatiyeh,
while the Tigris from Diarbekr "goes eastward to Assyria." The rivers
thus appear as if never about to meet; but at Malatiyeh, the course of
the Euphrates is changed. Sweeping suddenly to the south-east, this
stream passes within a few miles of the source of the Tigris below Lake
Goljik, and forces a way through the mountains towards the south,
pursuing a tortuous course, but still seeming as if it intended
ultimately to mingle its waters with those of the Mediterranean. It is
not till about Balis, in lat. 36 deg., that this intention appears to be
finally relinquished, and the convergence of the two streams begins. The
Euphrates at first flows nearly due east, but soon takes a course which
is, with few and unimportant deflections, about south-east, as far as
Suk-es-Sheioukh, after which it runs a little north of east to Kurnah.
The Tigris from Til to Mosul pursues also a south-easterly course, and
draws but a very little nearer to the Euphrates. From Mosul, however,
to Samarah, its course is only a point east of south; and though, after
that, for some miles it flows off to the east, yet resuming, a