n God, and links
with Egypt and India--Ea as the Hebrew Jah--Ea and Varuna are Water
and Sky Gods--The Babylonian Dagan and Dagon of the
Philistines--Deities of Water and Harvest in Phoenicia, Greece,
Rome, Scotland, Scandinavia, Ireland, and Egypt--Ea's Spouse
Damkina--Demons of Ocean in Babylonia and India--Anu, God of the
Sky--Enlil, Storm and War God of Nippur, like Adad, Odin, &c.--Early
Gods of Babylonia and Egypt of common origin--Ea's City as Cradle of
Sumerian Civilization.

Ancient Babylonia was for over four thousand years the garden of
Western Asia. In the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, when it had come
under the sway of the younger civilization of Assyria on the north, it
was "a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of
oil olive and of honey[28]". Herodotus found it still flourishing and
extremely fertile. "This territory", he wrote, "is of all that we know
the best by far for producing grain; it is so good that it returns as
much as two hundredfold for the average, and, when it bears at its
best, it produces three hundredfold. The blades of the wheat and
barley there grow to be full four fingers broad; and from millet and
sesame seed, how large a tree grows, I know myself, but shall not
record, being well aware that even what has already been said relating
to the crops produced has been enough to cause disbelief in those who
have not visited Babylonia[29]." To-day great tracts of undulating
moorland, which aforetime yielded two and three crops a year, are in
summer partly barren wastes and partly jungle and reedy swamp.
Bedouins camp beside sandy heaps which were once populous and thriving
cities, and here and there the shrunken remnants of a people once
great and influential eke out precarious livings under the oppression
of Turkish tax-gatherers who are scarcely less considerate than the
plundering nomads of the desert.

This historic country is bounded on the east by Persia and on the west
by the Arabian desert. In shape somewhat resembling a fish, it lies
between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, 100 miles
wide at its broadest part, and narrowing to 35 miles towards the
"tail" in the latitude of Baghdad; the "head" converges to a point
above Basra, where the rivers meet and form the Shatt-el-Arab, which
pours into the Persian Gulf after meeting the Karun and drawing away
the main volume of that double-mouthed river. The distance from
Baghdad t