'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎124] (257/458)

124 COMMANDER F. JONES.
Kesrawl formed between itself and the Tigris, severing in ita ^
career the neck of the great artery, and, spreading devastation over
the whole district around, towns, villages, and canals; men, animals
and cultivation must thus have been engulphed in a moment ; but the
immediate loss was doubtless small compared with the misery and
gloom that followed. The whole region for a space of 250 miles
averaging about 20 in breadth, was dependent on the conduit for water,
and contained a population so dense, if we may judge from the ruins
and great works traversing it in its whole extent, that no spot on
the globe perhaps could excel it. Of those that were spared to
witness the sad effects of the disaster, thousands—perhaps millions, had
to fly to the banks of the Tigris for the immediate preservation of life
as the region at once became a desert where before was animation and
prosperity. The ruin of the Kktul-al-Kesr&wf is, indeed, the great
blow the country has received. Its severity must have created univer
sal stupor, and was doubtless followed by pestilence and famine of
unmitigated rigour, owing to the marshes which accumulated annually
in the absence of the dams on each spring rise of the river. The ruling
authorities, whoever they were, could not hope, nor, perhaps, did they
think of restoring so groat a work, which could never be done, unless,
indeed, it were commenced on entirely new ground ; and thus deprived
of the barrier which had protected the territory from the N. E. as
well as nourished its internal condition it is not surprising to find every
one participating in the plunder of the capital, left almost isolated,
on a district, of which previously it was the nucleus of prosperity and
greatness. The decline of the Khalifate brought fresh disaster upon
the territory, for public works, so necessary in a country traversed by
such vast rivers, were either entirely suspended or but partially under
taken ; and security for property or person, amid the increasing anarchy,
was no longer reckoned on. Traders then ceased their vocations, and
merchants left the district for more settled places. Tottering suburbs
abandoned by their inhabitants fell, and their materials, carried by
inundations, became spread over the former fertilized districts, depre
ciating the value of the land while their inmates, crowding totbe&l -
ready replete asylums which others had found, added to the scarcity
and disease. To say nothing of plagues and their withering effect on the
* The quantity of nitre and amnionia covering the whole of this tract is enormous. -I 110
former appears to have some affinity with the brick material of the mounds, and the latter
is a peculiar feature of deserted cities from the dead animal matter which has been pn^ e£ *
with the soils.
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