"Doubtless all the advantages resulting for the Affej Bed'ween and their allies from the presence of the Americans were carefully calculated by them in the three years (February, 1896-1899) that we had withdrawn our expedition from their territory. They have apparently found out that the comparatively large amount of money brought into their country through the wages paid to many Arabs employed as workmen, and through the purchase of milk, eggs, chicken, mutton, and all the other material supplied by the surrounding tribes for our camp, with its about two hundred and fifty persons, has done much to improve their general condition. The conviction has been growing with them that we have not come to rob them of anything to which they attach great value themselves, nor to establish a new military station for the Turkish government in order to gather taxes and unpaid debts. Every Arab engaged by the Expedition has been fairly treated, and help and assistance have always been given cheerfully and gratis to the many sick people who apply daily for medicine, suffering more or less during the whole year from pulmonary diseases, typhoid and malarial fevers, easily contracted in the midst of the extended marshes which they inhabit." In the "Sunday School Times" of August 5, in the same year, Professor Hilprecht reported: "The mounds of Nippur seem to conceal an almost inexhaustible treasure of inscribed cuneiform tablets, by means of which we are enabled to restore the chronology, history, religion, and the high degree of civilization, obtained at a very early date by the ancient inhabitants between the lower Euphrates and Tigris. More than 33,000 of these precious documents were found during the previous campaigns. Not less than 4,776 tablets have been rescued from February 6 to June 10 this year, averaging, therefore, nearly 1,200 'manuscripts in clay,' as we may style them, per month. About the fourth part of these tablets is in perfect condition, while a very large proportion of the remaining ones are good-sized fragments or tablets so fortunately broken that their general contents and many important details can be ascertained by the patient decipherer."