short distance on each side of the canals in actual operation, present to
the eye a pleasing, and in some cases a luxuriant verdure; the rest,
except in early spring, is parched and arid, having little to distinguish
it from the most desolate districts of Arabia. Anciently, except for
this difference, the tract must have possessed all the wearisome
uniformity of the steppe region; the level horizon must have shown itself
on all sides unbroken by a single irregularity; all places must have
appeared alike, and the traveller can scarcely have perceived his
progress, or have known whither or how to direct his steps. The rivers
alone, with their broad sweeps and bold reaches, their periodical changes
of swell and fall, their strength, motion, and life-giving power, can
have been objects of thought and interest to the first inhabitants; and
it is still to these that the modern must turn who wishes to represent,
to himself or others, the general aspect and chief geographical divisions
of the country.

The Tigris and Euphrates rise from opposite sides of the same
mountain-chain. This is the ancient range of Niphates (a prolongation
of Taurus), the loftiest of the many parallel ridges which intervene
between the Euxine and the Mesopotamian plain, and the only one which
transcends in many places the limits of perpetual snow. Hence its
ancient appellation, and hence its power to sustain unfailingly the two
magnificent streams which flow from it. The line of the Niphates is
from east to west, with a very slight deflection to the south of west;
and the streams thrown off from its opposite flanks, run at first in
valleys parallel to the chain itself, but in opposite directions, the
Euphrates flowing westward from its source near Ararat to Malatiyeh,
while the Tigris from Diarbekr "goes eastward to Assyria." The rivers
thus appear as if never about to meet; but at Malatiyeh, the course of
the Euphrates is changed. Sweeping suddenly to the south-east, this