(M454) In looking back upon the primitive state of the country, its natural features must be taken into account as helping to shape the course of development. In such a low-lying country as the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, floods naturally occur every year. Every spot of land that stood above the level of the annual floods was thereby marked out for a residence. Throughout the literature of Babylonia the hill or the mountain is a refuge and a place protected by the gods. But when the floods were gone, man’s great need for his land was water. Hence irrigation was synonymous with cultivation. The unclaimed land grew rank with grass and natural food for cattle, but dried up to dust in the summer. Hence the control of the flood, its diversion into desired channels, regulation, storage, and all the processes implied by canals and irrigation were forced upon the inhabitants of Babylonia by stern necessity. The only alternative was to migrate with flocks and herds to higher lands when the floods came. (M455) Settled society was ultimately founded upon the cultivation of a plain. Every eminence might become a hamlet occupied by the abodes of men, whose fields were water meadows. The meadows which grew their corn lay around the village and below its level; and beyond those which were needed to grow crops lay the pastures. But for security the cattle and sheep must come back, before the floods came, to the village, there to be folded and fed, as it seems, upon straw and also grain. The land of the village extended itself in time, as the population grew and needed more corn. More and more of the unreclaimed land beyond the cornfields was brought into cultivation and the flocks went farther afield for pasture. This continued until the pastures forming the outlying ring had met the pastures of another village. (M456) Such is an ideal sketch of the growth of land tenure. But in historical times this simplicity had vanished. Land was owned, not merely held. It does not appear that pasture was owned, even as late as the First Dynasty of Babylon. It seems that the flocks were confided to shepherds, who were bound to bring them back from the pastures and expected to account for all they took out and for a reasonable increase in the flock from breeding. The pasture was common land; at any rate, to the sheep-owners of the same village. No one claims to buy and sell pasture land, only cultivated land, fields, gardens, and plantations, ultimately irrigated land. But unreclaimed land, that is, such as only required cultivation to make it fields and gardens, is often sold, or let, to be reclaimed. Was this a trespass on the pasture held in common? If so, it was not resented as such. We do not know yet how a man acquired a title to such unreclaimed land. Perhaps to have brought it into cultivation sufficed originally to establish title.