Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

cu. XXIII.] Palm Villages of the Eitpln-atcs.
villages * maintaining a sort of deatli in life, and it
is only witliin the last few years that a little cultivation
has been once more attempted under Turkish
protection,
Deyr, the only remaining village at the
date of the Turkish occupation in 1862, owed its
-existence to the position of its cornfields on an island
protected by the river. Of Bussra and the riverine
villages below Bagdad I will
say nothing, as I have
not visited them. They are besides well known.
The holy cities of Kerbela and Meshid Ali are fairly
flourishing places, and the right bank of tlie Sliatt
el Arab, occupied by the Montefik tribe has been
described
whole valley.
to me as the best cultivated region of the
There are also a few small oases west
of the Euphrates, the chief of which, Kubeza and
Shedadi, are markets much frequented by the
Bedouins.
As regards our
own travels, I fear we have been
able to add little to the general stock
of knowledge
on geographical matters. The ancient Greek city
of El Haddr, although little known to Europeans,
has already been described by ]Mr. Ainsworth who
.saw it about 1840, and it has since been visited more
than once by j\Ir. Layard, and by at least one other
English traveller. Our route across Mesopotamia I
believe
to be a new one, and the Sneyzele and Ominuthsiabeh
lakes will now be marked for the first
time on any map. We have ascertained too that
* I do not of course mean here to include in the term " Upper
Euphrates" any part of the river beyond the limits of the desert.