mwood,
forming together a vari-coloured vegetation which gives shelter to
the ostrich and the wild ass, and affords the flocks of the nomads a
grateful pasturage when the autumn has set in. The Euphrates bounds
these solitudes, but without watering them. The river flows, as far as
the eye can see, between two ranges of rock or bare hills, at the foot
of which a narrow strip of alluvial soil supports rows of date-palms
intermingled here and there with poplars, sumachs, and willows. Wherever
there is a break in the two cliffs, or where they recede from the river,
a series of shadufs takes possession of the bank, and every inch of the
soil is brought under cultivation. The aspect of the country remains
unchanged as far as the embouchure of the Khabur; but there a black
alluvial soil replaces the saliferous clay, and if only the water were
to remain on the land in sufficient quantity, the country would be
unrivalled in the world for the abundance and variety of its crops.

[Illustration: 036.jpg THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES AT ZULEIBEH]

Drawn by Boudier, from the plate in Chesney.

The fields, which are regularly sown in the neighbourhood of the small
towns, yield magnificent harvests of wheat and barley: while in the
prairie-land beyond the cultivated ground the grass grows so high that
it comes up to the horses' girths. In some places the meadows are so
covered with varieties of flowers, growing in dense masses, that the
effect produced is that of a variegated carpet; dogs sent in among them
in search of game, emerge covered with red, blue, and yellow pollen.
This fragrant prairie-land is the delight of bees, which produce
excellent and abundant honey, while the vine and olive find there a
congenial soil. The population was unequally distributed in this region.
Some half-savage tribes were accustomed to wander over the plain,
dwelling in tents, and supporting life by the chase and by the rearing
of cattle; but the bulk of the inhabitants were concentrated around the
affluents of the Euphrates and Tigris, or at the foot of the northern
mountains wherever springs could be found, as in Assur, Singar, Nisibis,
Tilli,* Kharranu, and in all the small fortified towns and nameless
townlets whose ruins are scattered over the tract of country between the
Khabur and the Balikh. Kharranu, or Harran, stood, like an advance guard
of Chaldaean civilization, near the frontiers of Syria and Asia Minor.**
To the north it commanded th