Ivory now in use is not, as a rule, from the now living elephants. The natives search it out from under the forest debris, where the remains of elephants who lived thousands of years ago are found. MESOPOTAMIA After visiting the interior of Japan, China, Anam, Siam, Ceylon, India, Persia, Arabia, I found myself, in the evening of November 2, 1899, at Bagdad, Turkey, in close communion with our American consul, Rudolph Hurner, who had held that position from the United States to Mesopotamia for about thirty years. Bagdad is about 400 miles from the Persian gulf, and is now the largest Mesopotamian city of the old Babylonian empire, whose kings once caused the world to wince. Mesopotamia, like the valley of the Yangtsekiang, is by nature very productive. Either, if properly cultivated, would supply rice sufficient to sustain the world, but here the outrageous taxes, together with the wild men of the desert scare away all enterprise, while in China the Yaw-men actually absorb the products of the soil through the imposition of exchange. [Illustration: WITH CONSUL HURNER'S SERVANTS IN BAGDAD, MESOPOTAMIA.] RUD HURNER "Now, Mr. Richardson," said Consul Hurner, as in the twilight we stood in his tropical garden, which overlooks the Tigris River, "you had better take my advice and not go beyond Hille. It is better to take the course of other travelers. Go to the border of civilization and then get some well-informed native to give you particulars, which you can polish up and call it experience, like the assumed traveler in the Star and Crescent, who boxed our dead in coffins, a custom unknown here. "I have represented the United States here for years and have probably entertained every American traveler who has visited Baylon, Nipper and other biblical landmarks here. None have been so hazardous as to go among a people who are so bigoted that they consider it their religious duty to kill those who would interfere with their mode of worship. From reports of stragglers, or desert herdsmen, there are, I presume, twenty thousand people in Nazzip or Me-Schwad, mostly children of Bedouins. They have no schools, no maps of the world, do not know north from south and their wealth has been gained through wild raids on the Mohammedan fanatics bringing their dead to the ancient shrine of Nazzip, mostly from Persia and India." "I came out to see the elephant, Mr. Hurner," I said, "and while I appreciate your advice, I am not afraid of those people. I go open-handed with little money, which they could use, and with a disposition to appreciate instead of criticize. My experience with the uncivilized has been that if one mind his own business, and do not stray from the crowd, their confidence is soon gained, and they soon show indications of sympathy and love. Do you think my men will back out of the agreement?"