“The rich plains of Mesopotamia and Assyria which were once cultivated by a populous nation and watered by surprising efforts of human industry, are now inhabited, or rather ravaged by wandering Arabs. So long as these fertile provinces shall remain under the government, or rather anarchy of the Turks they must continue deserts in which nature dies for want of the fostering care of man”—_Niebuhr_ (1792). What changes of history have left their records in ruins and names and legends on the great alluvial plains of Northeastern Arabia! The two rivers still bear their Bible names, the Euphrates and _Dijleh_, or Hiddekel, but nothing else is left which could be called paradise. What impresses the traveller first and most is that so large an extent of this fertile region lies waste and unproductive under an effete rule. The splendor of the past can scarcely be believed because of the ruin of the present. Everywhere are traces of ancient empires and yet it seems incredible as we watch the half-naked Arabs ploughing through the mud-banks with their wild cattle and primitive implements. Was this the cradle of the human race? Babylon and Nineveh are here for the archaeologist; Ctesiphon, Kufa and Zobeir for the historian; Bagdad and Busrah (or Bassorah) for old Arabian romance; and Ur of the Chaldees for the Bible student. Since Haroun Rashid went about in disguise how many yet stranger Arabian nights has Bagdad seen! How surprised Sinbad the sailor would be to see the decay of Busrah, yet with a dozen “smoke-ships” in its harbor! Mesopotamia, called by the Arabs _El Jezira_, was formerly limited to the land lying between the two rivers and south of the old wall by which they were connected above Bagdad. From this point to the Persian Gulf the district was and is still known as Irak-Arabi, to distinguish it from the Irak of Persia. Commonly, however, the name of Mesopotamia (Mid-River-Country) is given to the whole northeastern part of Arabia. It has a total area of 180,000 square miles and presents great uniformity in its physical as well as its ethnical characteristics. Arabs live and Arabic is spoken for three hundred miles beyond Bagdad as far as Diarbekr and Mardin; but we limit our description to the region between Busrah and Bagdad including the delta at the mouth of the rivers.