That romance has so long been busy with the name of Semiramis as to leave small space for history; that the myths about Derceto and Astarte and Ashtaroth were in the course of ages attached to the Assyrian palace lady who made so great an impression on her contemporaries is not an exceptional occurrence. Similar myths and romances have clustered about the names of Alexander the Great, about Charlemagne, about Harun-al-Rashid, about Frederick Barbarossa, about Dietrich von Bern, and other notabilities of ancient and mediæval times.[399] But the veils of myth and legend and romance, which have so long enveloped the commanding personality of Semiramis, are finally torn away and reveal a woman, like her namesake of Russia, of rare ability and forcefulness, and that at a time when and in a land where participation in public affairs on the part of women was absolutely taboo.[400] I have dwelt somewhat at length on the fascinating romance of Semiramis because it is so interesting an illustration of the extraordinary progress which the new science of Assyriology has made during the last few decades; because it illustrates how difficult it is in the annals of the nations of western Asia to separate myth and legend from authentic history; because it shows how gradually we are acquiring a more thorough and exact knowledge of the great empires of Assyria and Babylonia than was possible for a Berosus or a Herodotus to obtain; and, lastly, because it exhibits in bold relief the importance of the work which the Germans, especially the members of the _Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft_, have for years been quietly accomplishing in the valley of the Tigris from the source of this storied river in the highlands of Kurdistan to the alluvial plains of ruin-besprent Babylonia. The first two days after leaving Assur we found but little along the river to attract us from our smoothly-gliding kelek. We encountered, it is true, occasional eddies, or reaches in the river where the current was more rapid than usual, or where small islands were so numerous that navigation was somewhat intricate, but we rather enjoyed this as it roused our crew from their habitual lethargy and from their chronic disposition to spend all their time in kaif. We also met with quite a number of breakers which extended across the river, but none of them were so violent as that of the Zikr ul Aawaze. Many have maintained that the largest of these rapids are due to the ruins of bridges that spanned the Tigris in ancient times, but it seems more probable that they were caused by the ruins of dams which were constructed by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia “to insure a constant supply of water to the innumerable canals which spread like a network over the surrounding country.” This seems clear from what Strabo says of them, although he himself seems to think that they were built to prevent hostile fleets from ascending the rivers of Mesopotamia and Susiana.