was world-wide, and Baghdad became to the East what Rome became in the
West.

For some five centuries this pre-eminence continued, until the Turkish
nomadic tribes from Central Asia came on to the stage. They conquered
Persia, Mesopotamia, and Syria.

The Turks extended their conquests to Egypt, and Baghdad, now on the
decline, kept her head above water for another century. But Chingiz
Khan, the Mongol, appeared on the scene, and his son and successor,
Ogotay, overran the Caucasus, Hungary, and Poland. Baghdad was sacked by
Hulagu in 1258, and the irrigation works of Mesopotamia were destroyed.

In spite of her decline and fall Baghdad is still a holy place to all
faithful Mohammedans. It is the Mecca of the Shiah Mussulmans. Kerbela
and Nejef are the great places of burial for the faithful, and among the
common sights of the plains of Mesopotamia are endless caravans of
corpses from the Persian hills or from the distant north.

The British occupation of Baghdad has been responsible for one broad
street through the city, possible for ordinary traffic, but most of the
bazaars are long covered-in ways, arched like cloisters and very
picturesque at night. There are some wonderful blues on domes and
minarets, but it is not until you see the golden towers of Khadamain
that you get any glimpse of the splendour of the golden prime of good
Haroun-al-Raschid. Khadamain is a great place of pilgrimage, and so
zealously guarded is the place that it is said no Christian would ever
be allowed to come out of the great mosque alive. A golden chain hangs
across the entrance. This can be seen in frontispiece sketch of this
book. All good Mussulmans kiss this chain as they enter the sacred
precincts.

From many delightful points of view the gleaming towers of this place,
seen through the palms and reflected in the flooded lagoons at the
margin of the river, do indeed give us something of the colour and
romance that we had expected to see and yet so rarely find in the
sun-baked lands of Mesopotamia.

[Illustration]

VIII

PARADISE LOST

[Illustration: "Blossoms and fruit at once of golden hue Appeared, with
gay enamelled colours mixed." --_Paradise Lost, IV_.]

[Illustration]

PARADISE LOST

The statement often made that Mesopotamia is a vast desert through which
run two great rivers, bare but for the palm trees on their banks and
flat as a pancake, is true as far as it goes. It is possible, however,
to pict