THE WISE MEN FROM THE WEST


The story of Mesopotamia is a story of irrigation. "It is not
improbable," writes Sir William Willcocks, the great irrigationist,
"that the wisdom of ancient Chaldea had its foundations in the necessity
of a deep mastery of hydraulics and meteorology, to enable the ancient
settlers to turn what was partially a desert and partially a swamp into
fields of world-famed fertility." The civilizations of Babylon and
Assyria owed their very life to the science of watering the land, and
even in the later times of Haroun Alraschid their great systems had been
well maintained. It is said of Maimûn, the son and successor of this
monarch, that he exclaimed, as he saw Egypt spread out before him,
"Cursed be Pharaoh who said in his pride, 'Am I not Pharaoh, King of
Egypt?' If he had seen Chaldea he would have said it with humility."

Allowing for a certain amount of patriotic exaggeration, the exclamation
at least shows at what a high degree of excellence the irrigation system
of Mesopotamia was maintained in the 10th century A.D. Yet
Mesopotamia is to-day a desert except for the regions in the immediate
vicinity of the rivers. You can go westwards from Baghdad to the
Euphrates, and every mile or so you will have to cross earthworks, not
unlike irregular railway embankments, showing a vast system of
irrigation channels both great and small. But there is not a drop of
water near and not a tree and no sign of any life. How came the change
and how can such a network of channels have ceased to work entirely?