From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

Milton, “Paradise Regained.”

Wrapt in the crispy air of a bright October morning, we found ourselves on the shaky and crowded pontoon bridge that connects Mosul with the long-buried city of Nineveh. Horses and camels jostled heaving, shouting, unwashed Turks and Kurds and Arabs, who seemed to be constantly in imminent danger of being shoved into the swift-flowing Tigris. The variety of garb and multiplicity of tongues of the motley and vociferous throng on the swaying and creaking bridge strikingly recalled the clamorous and varicolored multitude that always crams the outer bridge between Galata and Stamboul.

How often, during our delightful sojourn in Mosul, had we gazed on the mysterious mounds on the eastern bank of the Tigris which were insistently beckoning us to visit them! And how eager were we to respond to the silent invitation and to explore the site of the once proud capital of Assyria! But we resisted the persistent temptation to interrupt our work in Mosul. We had there, with the assistance of the scholarly sons of St. Dominic, a rare opportunity of getting first-hand information regarding the social and economical condition of the people of this part of Asia and of completing our investigations, begun almost at the inception of our journey, respecting the various schismatic churches of the East. Not, then, until we had completed our observations in Mosul and coördinated our impressions, could we be induced to suspend our self-imposed task. We wished to have it completely off our hands in order that, once on the historic soil of Nineveh, we might indulge in reverie without let or hindrance.

When, finally, we were ready to visit the ruins of Nineveh, ours was the good fortune to have with us a learned Dominican of Mosul, who was as familiar with the early history of the famous old Assyrian metropolis as he was with the excavations which during the last two generations have revealed artistic and literary treasures that have been the marvel and the delight of the world. We could not have had a more intelligent or a more enthusiastic guide among the devious ways which led to the sites of ancient temples and palaces, whose existence was absolutely unknown until uncovered by the pick and spade of the archæologist but a few decades ago.

How strange it seemed to me, as we threaded our way through the maze of passages that led to the locations of once famous palaces and temples, that it was also a Dominican—a brother in religion of our guide—who first awakened my interest in Nineveh! That was more than three score years ago. And yet, so vivid was the impression then made on my youthful mind that it seems but yesterday when I first came under the spell of the famed lands of Assyria and Babylonia.

It came about in a very simple way. The Dominican in question—a dear, venerable man—had visited the Holy Land shortly before I met him, and took great pleasure in telling me his experiences in the East. Seeing that I was greatly interested in his narrative he gave me a large history of the Bible. It was not such a book, I have often since thought, as the average boy would have cared to read. But the good priest could not have selected a work that would have given me more pleasure—certainly not one that would have benefited me more deeply or influenced more profoundly all my subsequent reading and study. It was, too, I must add, the first book I ever had in my hands outside of my elementary school readers. But how I prized that book! And how I read it again and again, and always with ever-increasing interest and delight! I do not know how often I read it carefully from cover to cover, but I do know that there is only one other volume that I have read more frequently, and that, after the Bible, is my favorite of all books—The Divina Commedia.

How often I have had reason to be grateful to the good old Dominican who unconsciously directed my studies in such wise as to afford me life-long pleasure and profit! As a consequence of the repeated reading of the book which he placed in my hands I became familiar with the history of the cradle of our race long before I had entered my teens, and I felt quite well acquainted with Nineveh and Babylon when Athens and Rome were yet to me but little more than mere names without significance. And, although as I grew older, I became interested in many other subjects, I never lost my early love of sacred history or of the history and geography of the Near East. For no matter how occupied I might be, I always contrived to find time to continue the studies which had such a fascination for me in my early boyhood.

To the student of Assyrian or Babylonian history, nothing is more impressive than the first view of one of those stupendous mounds which are so frequent along the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates and in the vast plain between Bagdad and Abu Sharein. But the impression is greatly intensified when the place visited is associated with the happiest days of one’s youth and when one may again dream the dreams that once afforded such exquisite pleasure and such delightful visions of long-departed glory and magnificence. This was my experience when I first set foot on the soil that covers the superb structures which, in my early boyhood, I had so frequently pictured in fancy that it almost seemed that I had really wandered through their sculpture-adorned halls and had been an actual spectator of the gorgeous processions which they had so frequently witnessed when Nineveh was at the zenith of her power and greatness.

I had been deeply impressed when I first ascended the hill on which stood Homer’s Troy, but my emotion was not so great as when I found myself on the crumbling ruins of “Nineveh, that great city in which there were more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that knew not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left.”[353]

But this is easily explained. I was much younger when I became acquainted with the enchanting story of Nineveh than when I first conned the spell-weaving pages of the Iliad. My earlier impressions were more vivid and, because of the intimate relation of Assyria to the Holy Land, as exhibited in the Sacred Text, my interest was correspondingly greater.