'DIARY OF A TOUR IN THE PERSIAN GULF AND IN TURKISH ARABIA, DECEMBER, 1906 (WITH MAP)' [‎15r] (29/106)

23
Its former glory,
and decline.
The modern city.
frown; even in those days f the grester part
of Europe had hardly emerged from the
primitive barbarism into which it had sunk
with the fall of the Roman Empire, or from
which it had never emerged. Beautified
and embellished by Haroun-er-Rashid and
by his celebrated consort, whose remains,
still covered by a much renovated tomb,
lie close at hand, and by the succeeding
Caliphs, for five hundred years, with vary
ing fortunes, Bagdad maintained its P os J"
tion as one of the most important capitals
of Asia. Then came the Mongols from the
great central steppes, carrying death and
devastation with them, and Bagdad, like
many another haughty capital, had to bow
before the storm. A century and a half
later Timur, that second Scourge of Bod,
followed in the footsteps of his forbears,
leaving a ravished and ruined city and a
pyramid of 90,000 Bagdadi heads as
mementos of his handiwork. Into the later
vicissitudes of this once mighty capital it
is unnecessary to enter. Enough has been
said to show that here one is on classic
ground. In the near neighbourhood em
pires, as mighty in their way as any the
world knows now, have had their rise,
whilst the ruins of their capitals to this
day proclaim their fall. Here, if we are
not in the very cradle of the human race,
we are at least on ground the associations of
which take us back into the as yet scarce
ly explored depths of history, to the days
when the world was young. Here too,
all around us, lie the battlefields of the
earliest nations of our race, where the war
ring peoples, led by the greatest captains
of antiquity, met in deadliest conflict and
dynasties and empires rose and fell. f
Belgium has any right to be called the
cockpit of Europe, then assuredly may
Mesopotamia be termed the battle-ground
of Asia. It is only by remembering these
things and by attuning oneself to its
dorious past that one can with advantage
study or appreciate the Bagdad of to-day.
For assuredly, apart from those traditions,
there is little in the modern city to excite
either our admiration or our interest. The
traveller who, attracted merely by the
glamour of a name, expects to find in Bag
dad the wondrous city of his dreams is
doomed to bitterj disappointment.
Having said so much I can resume the
prosaic record of our doings. We ascend
ed to the high roof of the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. and
from that vantage ground obtained an
excellent view of the city.
A photograph in the collection which
accompanies this report shows the view
up-stream. Across the river, here some 300