TURKISH ARAI31A, a province of Turkey, has an area approximately of 140,000 square miles. Its population comprises Arabs, Kurds, Jews, and Christians. Baghdad, its capital, is situate on both banks of the Tigris, and is the headquarters of the \Vali in charge of the administration, assisted by a Muawin, with a general officer, who is in direct cominunication with the War Minister at Constantinople. Two of the three districts into which Kurdistan is usually divided, fall more or less within the limits of Turkish Arabia. These two districts are Central Kurdistan and South Eastern Kurdistan. The former extends north and sonth along the Turco-Persian borders front I.ake Van to Sulimania ; the latter comprises the 'Turkish districts of Sulimania and Sharizor, the Persian provinces of Ardclan or Sehna and Kermanshah, and a strip of country, including the plain of Zohab, from Kermanshah to the extremity of the Luristan Hills. The Turkish Kurds in the districts of Van, Nfosul, and Suli mania may number 700,000 souls. They are of the Sunni sect of Muharn madans, and devoted followers of Abd-ul-Kadir Ghilani, the founder of the Kadria section of dar vesh, whose tomb is at Baghdad.
The country lying between the towns Kut-el Amara and Amara, and inland as far as the Persian frontier, belongs to the Beni Liam, a powerful Arab tribe, and they and their neigh bours, the Feili Kurds, are Shiall Muhammadans. Amara town is the S.E. limit of the I3eni Laam territory, and is just above the marshes of the Tigris where the river Bud flows out of the Tigris. The Tigris and Euphrates unite at Klima to form the Shat-ul-Arab stream. The Turks claiin the right bank of its whole course, but the left bank, from a point a few miles above Mullatmera and thence to the sea, is occupied by the Kaab Arabs, who are in subordination to Persia.
Mesopotamia, or the doab between the right bank of the Tigris and the left bank of the Euphrates, is known to the Arabs as Jazirah, meaning island. Its inhabitants are Arabs. Those at its upper part are the Shammar Jarha tribe, who migrated from Nejd about the middle of the 18th century. They are of the Sunni sect, and are still nomade Bedouins, wandering over the whole of Northern Mesopotamia. In the summer their chief pasturage ground is at Shergot, on the Upper Tigris, a short distance below Mosul, and in the Winter they approach Baghdad to buy supplies. They are at feud with the neighbouring tribes, the Anezeh, the Dilem, and the Montefik, the last a small population of many Fellah tribes.
In the lower part of Mesopotamia, the people are of the Shiall sect, especially in the neighbour hood of the holy cities Kazntain, Knrbila, and Najaf.
British relations with Turkish Arabia date from the formation of the Elea India Company, a factory having been formed in 13tutrii under the supervision of the Company's agent at Gambrun or Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf. Mali A.D. 1833 the resident officers' duties were partly commercial and in part political, but since then wholly of the latter character, under the Political Agent at Baghdad.
The Tigris ie navigable at all seasons of the year from Mosul, and in the spring floods from Diarbekir. The Euphrates is navigable from Balls to Kurna, where the two rivers join. From Kurna to the sea there is water for vessels of very con siderable draught.-7'r. Chichely Ploteden.