'Mesopotamia' [‎69r] (137/152)

Mesopotamia! GENERAL REMARKS 127
F.nohrates The work on the canals was started early in
June; they were finished by the end o! October, and the ground
thev irrigate is now under cultivation.
Needless to say. the Arab cultivators welcome the neu
regime. Their property, which has lain fallow for years, ^ill
become rich and profitable. AH the summer and autumn they
were busy getting their water channels clear Below the
barrage some 14,000 Arabs were engaged in making the neu
canals and clearing the old ones. Nearly every able-bodied
man in the district is working for us. Turks
The Arabs are an eminently sensible people. ihe iui *,
when they evacuated the district, were for ^stroymg the
Hindieh barrage, but the tribesmen preserved it. The Aral)
knew the Turk would do nothing for him, and he would not pa>
him revenue if he could help it; but the collection of revenue
on the Euphrates no longer calls for an armed force. aj ^
taxes has become an investment. For there is no cultivator m
the world who will not lend a hand at getting water into his
own fields. The Arabs appreciate the art of img^ion thoug i
they do not excel in it; and we have come to them on the
Euphrates as fertilisers of the soil.
The cardinal question in relation to the future of
Mesopotamia is the development of irrigation. At the
time Sir William Willcoeks was m Mesopotamia the
onlv evidence of the prosperity which in ancient times
made the country famous were the traces of the gieat
cities which in the time of Herodotus studded the
country, and the silt banks of countless canals, which
had been used in the past to make the country front
Beled to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. one continuous forest o.
verdure. From that point down-stream the greater
part of the country consisted at first of nothing but
bare plains of clay, ridged and furrowed with the n-
mains of ancient irrigation channels, and destitute i
all vegetation except leguminous thorn-bushes or
jungles of liquorice near the rivers, with "rcasioiia
belts of poplar or willow. Further south salt lands ai <
marshes increased, but of cultivation or date palms
there was hardly.a vestige, except here and there )\
rivers or canals.' Only along the lower reaches ot the
1 For further observations on thi* question , see above, pp. II
no. 76,