The English are pleased with the success of the Assuan dam. They plan to copy the example of Hol land and drain the shallow, salt lakes or bays at the outer edge of the Nile delta, and irrigate them with the water stored in dams a thousand miles upstream. 593. Mesopotamia, the oasis of the Tigris and the Euphrates.—These two rivers, fed by the winter rains and melting snows of the mountains of Armenia, flood thousands of square miles each year. Like the streams of Cal ifornia (Sec. 194), they have partly filled a great arm of the sea with earth. Even in historic times all that part of the plain below the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates has been built by the two mud bearing rivers. The streams wind back and forth across this plain much as the Missis sippi and Rio Grande do in their flood plains.
This valley shares with the valley of the Nile the honor of being the seat of early civilizations and the site of many changing empires. To-day many things which are new to this locality may be seen there. If we ride about in an automobile, we may see English army airplanes flying overhead. We pass a string of auto trucks which are stirring up a great cloud of blinding dust as they speed along, carrying supplies to the garrison. These modern machines, the airplane and the automobile, have not replaced the ancient burden-bearers of the East, for we see strings of camels shambling along the road, and carrying bales of goods down from Persia to a steamboat landing on the Tigris. A donkey plods along almost buried beneath his huge load of straw stuffed into a rope net; his mean looking Arab master stalks behind, yelling loudly as he clubs the strong little beast. Looking in one direction, one sees the bare, dry desert; in the opposite direction, on the river's bank, is a fringe of palm trees and gardens, watered by natives who laboriously lift the water from the stream (Fig. 454). Everywhere the earth seems filled with pieces of broken pottery and old bricks; near by, great arches and gateways mark the entrance to ancient cities that are now only mounds of ruins. Digging in the side of these mounds, one will see one pavement above another with several feet of dirt between, showing that cities have been built, ruined, buried, and others built on the same site. Close by is an ancient empty canal built by King Nebuchadnezzar to irrigate this plain.
Since the World War, this valley with a population of three million people, has passed to the control of England, and modern industry is busy making another Egypt of it. Even under the Turks, steamboats went up the Tigris from Bassora to Bagdad, and ocean steamships carried from Bassora to New York nearly all the dates that we used in this country.
Europe looks to these two hot valleys for a quick supply of cotton fiber, which is so im portant for the world's clothing and industry. But these valleys cannot furnish all the cotton that Europe needs, because there is not enough land that can be irrigated.
594. Other resources.—There is oil (petro leum) at Mosul, in the upper part of Meso potamia. (Fig. 445.) This may make great business as long as the oil holds out, but we know it cannot last many decades (Sec. 301).
It is strange, but the desert has fishermen. , They live on the shores of the Persian Gulf, go out in small boats, dive down into the shallow waters, and bring up in their hands oysters, inside the shells of which pearls are found.
595. Government.—We have already seen (Secs. 590, 593) that Egypt and Mesopotamia are ruled by the British, who let the natives rule themselves as much as they can. During the World War the British promised the Arabian Arabs that if theywould help against the Turks and the Germans, they could have a kingdom of their own. This kingdom is called Hejaz, • and the Arabs plan to let no one but a Mohammedan enter it. It con thins the sacred city of Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, to which all Mohammedans who can will make a journey once in their lifetime. The King of Hejaz will probably have no better success than the Turks in ruling central Arabia. (Sec. 583.) Libia (Fig. 10) now belongs to Italy, ana most of the Sahara belongs to France, but tht nomads of the Sahara and the people of the small oases may be said almost to rule them selves. The French soldiers do not interfere much unless the natives fight or rob.
596. Future development.—Much of this enormous region that stretches over the whole width of one big continent and occupies a large corner of another one will remain as it is now, a dead desert. Great changes can be expected in the two big oases, Egypt and Mesopotamia, where as long as there is water in the rivers, there is a challenge to man to find a way to use it.