'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. III. 1917' [‎149] (158/432)

ROUTE 25 a
149
600 ft. above the plain, is reached. The last 100 yds. of
the ascent are steep and pebbly. T.L. rejoins the route
near this point. (One account makes the ascent to
summit of the pass 6 m.)
Descent on N. side of Jebel Hamrln begins. This is much
easier than the ascent on 'the S. side, and the route pre
sents no difficulty for guns. Good grazing ground (in
spring ?) on this slope of the hills was reported in 1873.
Enter open cultivated plain, the valley (8 m. wide) of the
Nahrin Su, which flows SE. to the Diyaleh. (One
account makes the descent from the pass 3 m. in length.)
Eoad boggy in wet weather.
Nahrin Koprii: brick bridge across Nahrin Su: five arches
in^ fair repair. Channel 60 yds. wide, but little water
(25 ft. wide) in January 1903. In the winter of 1909-
1910 water 50 ft. wide, 6 ft. deep. (One account places
this bridge 5 m. from summit of pass and 2 m. from foot
of hills.)
Two villages, both called Mahrin, f m. from the bridge,
containing together 300 houses well built of mud.
Four or five villages of about 60 houses each higher up
valley.
The valley of the Nahrin is fertile in this region and fairly well
cultivated (the crops were chiefly millet in 1873), but has suffered
from Kurdish raids. About 12 m. above the bridge the Kufri Su
enters it from the NE'. Above the junction of the Kufri Su with
the Nahrin Su the valley runs up NNW. between the rangee of
the Jebel Hamrln and the Kufri Dagh, and becomes bare of
cultivation for about 22 m., and for the most part uninhabited.
Though it becomes narrower it is still some miles broad; its floor
rises in a gradual slope from about 500 to about 750 ft. towards
its head: the Hamrin Hills on the 1. rise to nearly 1,200 ft., and
the Kufri Dagh on the r. to about 1,000 ft., at their highest points.
The valley is entered by a number of streams, which join the main
channel along the bottom of the valley, here called Chinchal
Dereh or Neft Dereh. The bed of this main channel is reported
as only occasionally containing water, but there is much naphtha
in it, as also in the hills to the N. In the upper part of the
valley (possibly 18-20 m. NNW. of the mouth of the Kufri Su)
appears to lie a large village of Biyat Arabs. About 21 m. from
the Kufri Su junction (in the neighbourhood of another Biyat
village) the valley leads by easy stages into a more populated
plain, covex-ed with ruined villages and tombs, and bounded on
the NE. by a line of hills (Neft Dagh) at the foot of which runs
the Baghdad—Mosul road (17 m. from Kufri, 8i m. from Tuz
Khurmatli).