* Loftus attributes the lowering of the temperature during the winter to the wind blowing over a soil impregnated with saltpetre. "We were," he says, "in a kind of immense freezing chamber."
[Illustration: 027.jpg THE MARSHES ABOUT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE KERKHA AND TIGRIS.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by J. Dieulafoy. For six weeks in November and December there is much rain: after this period there are only occasional showers, occurring at longer and longer intervals until May, when they entirely cease, and the summer sets in, to last until the following November. There are almost six continuous months of depressing and moist heat, which overcomes both men and animals and makes them incapable of any constant effort.* Sometimes a south or east wind suddenly arises, and bearing with it across the fields and canals whirlwinds of sand, burns up in its passage the little verdure which the sun had spared. Swarms of locusts follow in its train, and complete the work of devastation. A sound as of distant rain is at first heard, increasing in intensity as the creatures approach. Soon their thickly concentrated battalions fill the heavens on all sides, flying with slow and uniform motion at a great height. They at length alight, cover everything, devour everything, and, propagating their species, die within a few days: nothing, not a blade of vegetation, remains on the region where they alighted.
* Loftus says that he himself had witnessed in the neighbourhood of Bagdad during the daytime birds perched on the palm trees in an exhausted condition, and panting with open beaks. The inhabitants of Bagdad during the summer pass their nights on the housetops, and the hours of day in passages within, expressly constructed to protect them from the heat.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the country was not lacking in resources. The soil was almost as fertile as the loam of Egypt, and, like the latter, rewarded a hundredfold the labour of the inhabitants.* Among the wild herbage which spreads over the country in the spring, and clothes it for a brief season with flowers, it was found that some plants, with a little culture, could be rendered useful to men and beasts. There were ten or twelve different species of pulse to choose from--beans, 'lentils, chick-peas, vetches, kidney beans, onions, cucumbers, egg-plants, "gombo," and pumpkins. From the seed of the sesame an oil was expressed which served for food, while the castor-oil plant furnished that required for lighting. The safflower and henna supplied the women with dyes for the stuffs which they manufactured from hemp and flax. Aquatic plants were more numerous than on the banks of the Nile, but they did not occupy such an important place among food-stuffs. The "lily bread" of the Pharaohs would have seemed meagre fare to people accustomed from early times to wheaten bread. Wheat and barley are considered to be indigenous on the plains of the Euphrates; it was supposed to be here that they were first cultivated in Western Asia, and that they spread from hence to Syria, Egypt, and the whole of Europe.** "The soil there is so favourable to the growth of cereals, that it yields usually two hundredfold, and in places of exceptional fertility three hundredfold. The leaves of the wheat and barley have a width of four digits. As for the millet and sesame, which in altitude are as great as trees, I will not state their height, although I know it from experience, being convinced that those who have not lived in Babylonia would regard my statement with incredulity." Herodotus in his enthusiasm exaggerated the matter, or perhaps, as a general rule, he selected as examples the exceptional instances which had been mentioned to him: at present wheat and barley give a yield to the husbandman of some thirty or forty fold.