A PARADISE LOST By WALTER J. KAHLER The r~ent evel1ts ill Ihe LWrtl101' have again called aUe,llioTl to the Near East and il8 rrstless populatioll. The following article takes 'US to Muopotomia. Ihe heart of this area. The autllOr ill oue of Ih06e travelers who spend their whole I,ve.! on Ihe move from olle place to another, wid who, IlJh61~ on.e meets them in some r617Wtc corl1er of Ihe earth., can tell olle with the same matter-of-factness about /lleir experiellGeB in 'l.'ibet, 0" the C011g0, or in the Cordilleras. Aside from many olher tmvets, he has made four great journeys during the lnst ten years: by ca.r from L(~pla"d through all the latitudes to Souill Africa, and from Berlin 10 India; 011 foot with native bearers through southeastern Asia; and On h.orseback acr088 Soutl~ Amerir~. 'l'he 10(11' has Pllt a temporary 8tOp /0 his tra'velli, and he is now living in 1'okyo.-K.1H. HEN, coming from the eastern port on the sea, Tadmor, also known as coa·t of the Mediterranean, you Palmyra, the ca.pital of the Palmyrian W have crossed the range of the Empire. It was a station on the ancient Lebanon Mountains and climbed the transcontinent,al trade road which carried Anti-L~banons on the other side of the the goods pas ing between the Roman valley which is the continuation of the Empire and the dista.nt lands of the deep Jordan Depression, you see below East. Long camel caravans came from you the Syrian Desert, an absolutely flat Central Asia and crossed the desert in expanse spread out like a tablecloth thou­ order to transport the wa,res of the Orient sands of miles eastwardto the Persian Gulf. to the ports of the Mediterranean: slaves, This desolate piece of country, known perfumes and spices, cotton, hand­ as Mesopotamia, looks back upon an wrought products of copper and brass, ancient history. Countless tribes and tea, porcelain, paper, precious stones, races have crossed it in the course of the carpets, and bales of silk. centuries. Jews, Hittites and Ammo­ In Tadmor the camels were watered nites, Persians and Greeks, fought on its and the caravans supplied with guides soil; Romans, Egyptians, Tartars. and and mounted guards to protect them Saracens struggled for possession of this against predatory nomads, who from cOlmtry to be used as a steppingstone time immemorial regarded the plundering for further conquests. All these peoples of travelers as their traditional business. have left traces of their cultmes. Assyria Here a,greements were made with the and Babylon are strewn with the remains infiuential sheiks through whose territory of former cities, of temples, towers, and the caravans had to paSl.:l. It was the palaces. Babylon, where Nebuchadnez­ same system that is still used here today zar lived, the city of the hunging gardens; and which is known as ,·ifaq. Each tribe Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham's birthpla.ce, has its territory within which it demands where once stood the temple of the tribute from all travelers. In the district moon god; Kish, the first Babylonian of Deir ez Zor, for inst,ance, one must capital after the Flood; Ashur, Erbil, pay about £1 per head not to be molested. Niniveh, and many other sites of the The high income from the duty exacted past, are now among the favorite hunting in Palmyra for the passage of goods grounds of historians and archaeologists. enabled this town to develop into a splendid metropolis. \Vide streets flanked PALMYRA, ECHO OF THE PAST by columns and statues were constructed, Once upon a time, on the western edge the most magnificent of which led directly of the SyTian Desert, there lay, like a to the temple of Baal. A PARADISE LOST 409 Yet the history of the Palmyrian Early in the afternoon we reached Empire is a short one. After the murder "T 3," the first of these pumping stations, of King Odenathus, a vassal of Rome, whose round, aluminum-painted oil tanks who had expanded the empire to the we had seen shining from afar. As every­ borders of Egypt and had united all of where else where Europeans live in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia under solitude, the people here were very glad his scepter, his ambitious wife Zenobia to have visitors. It meant a break in risked repudiating her allegiance to Rome. the constant monotony and provided an Fortune did not favor her. Tadmor was excuse for an extensive dinner and count­ stormed in 272 A.D. by Emperor Aure­ less glasses of whisky. The guest room lian's troops and burned down to its to which we were shown was furnished foundations. The beautiful queen was like a first-class hotel room with a private taken prisoner and led through Rome in bathroom, electric light, radio, telephone, a triumphal march. Since then the re­ and several electric fans. The quarters mainders of the walls, houses, and columns of all the employees were furnished with of the town have been covered up by the same comforts. Besides a corre­ sand. Even the name was forgotten spondingly high salary, this is the only until in 1678 merchants from Aleppo means of keeping the employees at the rediscovered Palmyra. Today the place stations, which lie like little islands in is nothing but a small oasis, a miserable, the vastness of the desert. dusty cluster of mud huts and a passport office for the border traffic with Iraq. MODERN HERMITS The actual border between Syria and Iraq The considerations determining the is 200 kilometers further east in the desert construction of the living quarters were and is simply marked by a signboard. heat in summer, cold in winter, and flies TRACKS IN THE DESERT all the year round. For these reasons the rooms face north and south, the roofs There are two bus lines crossing the are almost as thick as the walls, and all desert between Damasous and Bagdad: windows are screened. Everything is a Syrian one and the Nairn Transporta­ done to make the occupants' stay 8B tion Company, whose luxurious motor agreeable as possible. The wide avenues eoaches are equipped with Pullman com­ connecting the whitewashed houses with partments, washrooms, telephone, and a the pumping plant are tarred to keep refreshment buffet. They cover the dis­ off dust and are planted with young tance of 870 kilometers in about twenty­ acacias and casuarinas, which in a few four hours, with a short stop midway at years will provide welcome shade. There Rutbah Wells. are ice-making, mineral-water, cold­ storage, and central-heating plants; a The authorities at Damascus are very laundry, bakery, canteen, and a well­ strict about not allowing single cars to equipped hospital, which has mostly to start out alone into the desert, for there deal with trachoma and other diseases of have been several cases of lonely drivers the eye. There are even vegetable gar­ losing their direction and getting lost in dens, chicken, geese, pigeons, and rabbits. the desert. But as we were asked to The artesian well supplying the water pay £5 for the privilege of swallowing needed for the whole station is 200 meters the dust of other cars, we chose the deep. route via Palmyra. Here, too, there is no actual road, but one cannot get lost The technical equipment of the stations as long as one follows the telephone lines. consists of an engine room containing Moreover, there are several stations of three five-hundred horse-power motors the Iraq Petroleum Company interspersed which supply the power for three large at distances of about a hundred kilometers pumps. Each of these sets in turn runs along this route where one could find day and night without stopping for three help in case of need. weeks. Then it ·is cleaned and prepared THE XXth CENTURY for it.s next turn. The pump house in The history of Hitt is closely C61Wected which the oil is forced ou under great with the story of the Flood and Noah's pressure into the main pipe line is sepa­ ark. Tales of a great deluge that coveted rated from the engine room by a gas­ almost every country are to be 'found in and waterproof waU. the legends of many races, even among These costly and strategically important those that had nothing whatever to do plants supply the fuel for the entire with MesopotlLmia. Hence it is a moot British Mediterranean fleet. In order to question, whether the event mentioned protect them from sabotage and damage in the Scriptures was limited to the great each station. consisting of about a hundred valley between the Euphrates and the acros, is surrounded by a high wire fence. Tigris. However, it is not impossible, The staff of some eventy native workers since in those days Mesopotamia was the and their families live outside. In ad­ center of the inhabited world. dition to this, the plants are protected Noah, too, had come to Hitt to fetch by a small fort, in which the employees pitch. The Bible tells liS that it poured can find refuge with their families in case for forty days and forty nights. 1'his of disturbances. These small fortresses, may be somewhat exaggerated; but it is some 75 by 55 meters in size, have bas­ quite possible that exceptionally heavy tions at two of their corners; they are rains fell in the Kurdi h-Armenian moun­ equipped with a wireless station, tele­ tains which caused the Euphrates and phone, water tanks, an electric generator, the 1'igris to overflow their banks and as well as food., weapons and ammunition flood aU Mesopotamia, drowning the for two weeks.