THE FIRST MONARCHY.




CHALDAEA.



CHAPTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY.

"Behold the land of the Chaldaeans."--ISAIAH xxiii. 13.


The broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere, in a
general direction from west to east (or, speaking more exactly, of
W. S. W. to N. E. E.), reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly
to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a
strip of rich vegetation, which at once breaks the continuity of the arid
region, and serves also to mark the point where the desert changes its
character from that of a plain at a low level to that of an elevated