natives do not use tents, but live on the open raft, and have their own heavy blankets in which they roll up at night. Our raft is the same kind that has been in use on this river

FLOATING DOWN THE TIGRIS ON A KELEK

for more than 5,000 years, as the bas reliefs found at Nineveh show. These rafts are hard to manage, but capable of carrying heavy loads. Two dark-skinned men dressed in baggy, dirty cotton trousers, short jackets and turbanlike caps propel the kelek

by means of sweeps. These men are called kelekgies. "Gie" in Arabic is a suffix which means "one who uses." The speed of the raft depends upon the amount of water and the velocity of the current. The Arab kelekgies row when in slack water, but they are not very industrious, so our progress is slow.

Sights along the way. We start at Diarbekir, which we reach by a hard journey of ten or twelve days by carriage or donkey from the Mediterranean Sea. Soon we pass high mountain cliffs and drift past old Roman ruins. Farther down the cliffs widen and we see the natives living in caves which they have cut out of the limestone.

Myriads of wild fowls ducks, geese, cranes, herons, pelicans, storks, snipes and many other birds fly overhead. We keep our rifles and guns within easy reach, for the fowl make a pleasant change from our "tinned meat" which we brought with us. Our kelekgie wishes to get one of the birds which has fallen into the water after being shot. He takes one or two goatskins from the kelek. After removing his jacket or flowing wrap, he slips overboard and puts the skins under his abdomen. His legs trail along, and by violent kicking and splashing he swims to the fowl. This unusual method of locomotion in water is used by the natives throughout the valley. often swims across the river with her baby on her back. Xenophon wrote of seeing people cross in this manner B. C. 400. As we proceed the volume of water increases, the stream winds here and there, and the buoyant kelek is constantly changing its position. We are greatly interested in watching one of

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.

A mother

the kelekgies, a devout Mohammedan, trying to keep his face toward Mecca when he prays five times each day.

Above Mosul navigation is very difficult and often obstructed by artificial dams built to obtain water for the highly cultivated fields in this vicinity. As we near Bagdad we pass many rafts loaded with cargoes of wool, grain, skins, and pottery. At Bagdad we say good-by to the kelek, which will be taken apart here, for since the rafts are moved by the current, they cannot go

back upstream. All navigation on the Tigris River above this point is down stream only. Here we see other craft, among them the goofa or kufa, a tublike wicker boat plastered with pitch. The natives in this region have made the goofa ever since Jonah's time. We find here a steamer that runs back and forth to Basra and take passage on it for that city.

A river near several seas. The Euphrates has its head-waters near the Caspian and Black Seas and makes a great bend to within 100 miles of the Mediterranean. It sends its waters through Mesopotamia at places running parallel to the Tigris, which it joins near Basra. In Bible times its position made the Euphrates valuable for transporting cedar, cypress, and pine from the Auramus and Lebanon Mountains, and for carrying fine building stone and asphalt from upstream points. These products were sent to the head

of the treeless delta and thence by canal over to the Tigris

towns.

The rivers sometimes flood the plains of lower Babylonia for many miles, and the people often are forced to take refuge on low mounds where they have built homes. While the floods last they paddle about in

small boats made of rushes. After the water subsides this desert section is bright with millions of wild flowers. Occasional fields of wheat wave and sheep eat the young grain. Much fighting goes on here, and plundering Arabs prevent the people from prospering as they

otherwise would.

Where land is made rapidly. On account of the nature of the soil and the length of their courses, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers carry much sediment. The fact that they deposit it in the landlocked Persian Gulf where the tide sweeps it

of this increase is

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.

BABYLONIAN

TENT OF AN ARAB CHIEF AND WATER
BUFFALO IN FLOODED
PLAIN, MESOPOTAMIA

toward the land, makes the delta build rapidly. The rate one mile in thirty years, or double that of any other river. The site of Eridu, which was an important seaport on the Persian Gulf B. C. 3000, is now 125 miles inland on this delta.

The wonderfully fertile region needs but the touch of modern civilization with the work of surveyors and engineers to restore to it the prosperity it enjoyed in the days when the boy Daniel