The irrigation works engineered by the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians were more wonderful than those carried out in Egypt. The deserts of Mesopotamia were intersected with an intricate network of canals. The rivers Tigris and Euphrates were dammed at intervals, to hold back the waters and direct them into the canals, feeding the fertile lands of the country round about. The banks of the rivers and canals were tended with scrupulous care, and heavy fines were inflicted on those who were responsible if the banks gave way. Mesopotamia in those days was the finest granary in the world. Here was the Garden of Eden, the fairest, most fruitful land under the sun, where, according to the Bible, the story of Man began, the land of the rivers of which the Bible says: “And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” Here Adam and Eve wandered in the Land of Plenty, until they were cast out for eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Now the smiling land is a waste. When Layard found these relics of a glorious past, the descendants of those who builded and carved were wanderers over the face of the desert, nomads, barely civilized, living in mud huts and tents. The difference between the past and present of Mesopotamia is stupendous, almost incredible. Before Layard started digging at Nimroud, relics of Assyria practically did not exist. All that were known might have been carried about comfortably in a kit-bag. In a short two years he crowded discovery on discovery. The past was revealed at his touch as if by magic. Even the Arabs realized the wonder of it. “God is great! God is great!” exclaimed an aged sheik to Layard. “Here are stones which have been buried ever since the time of the holy Noah—peace be with him. Perhaps they were underground before the Deluge. I have lived on these lands for years. My father, and the father of my father, pitched their tents here before me; but they never heard of these figures. For twelve hundred years have the true believers been settled in this country, and none of them ever heard of a palace underground. Neither did they who went before them. But lo! here comes a Frank, from many days’ journey off, and he walks up to the very place and he takes a stick, and makes a line here, and makes a line there. ‘Here,’ says he, ‘is the palace; there,’ says he, ‘is the gate;’ and he shows us what has been all our lives beneath our feet, without our having known anything about it. Wonderful! Wonderful! Is it by books? Is it by magic? Is it by your prophets that you have learnt these things? Speak, O Bey! Tell us the Secret of Wisdom.”