or Shi'ite Moslems in
the vilayet, Samarra, Kazemain, a suburb of Bagdad, Kerbela and Nejef.
These are visited annually by tens of thousands of pilgrims, not only from
the surrounding regions, but also from Persia and India; many of whom bring
their dead to be buried in the neighbourhood of the sacred tombs.

Unpleasant, but not dangerous, is another disease, the so-called "Bagdad
date-mark," known elsewhere as the "Aleppo button," &c. This disease
extends along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and the country adjacent
from Aleppo and Diarbekr to the Persian Gulf, although there are individual
towns and regions in this territory which seem to be exempt. It shows
itself as a boil, attacking the face and extremities. It appears in two
forms, known to the natives as male and female respectively. The former is
a dry scaly sore, and the latter a running, open boil. It is not painful
but leaves ugly scars. The natives all carry somewhere on their face, neck,
hands, arms or feet the scars of these boils which they have had as
children. European children born in the country are apt to be seriously
disfigured, as in their case the boils almost invariably appear on the
face, and whereas native children have as a rule but one boil, those born
of European parents will have several. Adult foreigners visiting the
country are also liable to be attacked, and women, especially, rarely
escape disfigurement if they stay in the country for any length of time.
The boils last for about a year, after which there is no more likelihood of
a recurrence of the trouble than in the case of smallpox.

The area of the vilayet is 54,480 sq. m. The population is estimated at
852,000; Christians, 8000, principally Nestorians or Chaldaeans; Jews,
54,000; Moslems, 790,000, of whom the larger part are Shi'as.

See G. le Strange, _Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate_ (1901); _The Lands
of the Eastern Caliphate_ (Cambridge, 1905); V. Cuinet, _La Turquie d'Asie_
(Paris, 1890); J. P. Peters, _Nippur_ (New York and London, 1897); Ed.
Sachau, _Am Euphrat und Tigris_ (Leipzig, 1900); A. V. Geere, _By Nile and
Euphrates_ (Edinburgh, 1904).

(J. P. PE.)

BAGDAD, or BAGHDAD, the capital of the Turkish vilayet of the same name. It
is the headquarters of the VI. Army Corps, which garrisons also the Basra
and Mosul vilayets. It lies on both sides of the river Tigris, in an
extensive desert plain which has scarcely a tree or village throughout its
whole extent, in l