heat
in summer is more pitiless, it is at least tempered by more frequent
east winds. The ground, however, soon begins to rise, ascending
gradually towards the north-east. The distant and uniform line of
mountain-peaks grows loftier on the approach of the traveller, and the
hills begin to appear one behind another, clothed halfway up with thick
forests, but bare on their summits, or scantily covered with meagre
vegetation. They comprise, in fact, six or seven parallel ranges,
resembling natural ramparts piled up between the country of the Tigris
and the table-land of Iran. The intervening valleys were formerly lakes,
having had for the most part no communication with each other and no
outlet into the sea. In the course of centuries they had dried up,
leaving a thick deposit of mud in the hollows of their ancient beds,
from which sprang luxurious and abundant harvests. The rivers--the
Uknu,* the Ididi,** and the Ulai***--which water this region are, on
reaching more level ground, connected by canals, and are constantly
shifting their beds in the light soil of the Susian plain: they soon
attain a width equal to that of the Euphrates, but after a short time
lose half their volume in swamps, and empty themselves at the present
day into the Shatt-el-Arab. They flowed formerly into that part of the
Persian Gulf which extended as far as Kornah, and the sea thus formed
the southern frontier of the kingdom.

* The Uknu is the Kerkhah of the present day, the Choaspes
of the Greeks.

** The Ididi was at first identified with the ancient
Pasitigris, which scholars then desired to distinguish from
the Eulseos: it is now known to be the arm of the Karun
which runs to Dizful, the Koprates of classical times, which
has sometimes been confounded with the Eulaws.

*** The Ulai, mentioned in the Hebrew texts (Ban. viii. 2,
16), the Euloos of classical writers, also called
Pasitigris. It is the Karun of the present day, until its
confluence with the Shaur, and subsequently the Shaur
itself, which waters the foot of the Susian hills.

From earliest times this country was inhabited by three distinct
peoples, whose descendants may still be distinguished at the present
day, and although they have dwindled in numbers and become mixed with
elements of more recent origin, the resemblance to their forefathers
is still very remarkable. There were, in the first place, the short
and ro