[400] Lehmann-Haupt in his interesting and illuminating lecture on Die historische Semiramis und ihre Zeit, which was delivered before the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Berlin, February 6, 1910, declares: “Von der sagenhaften Ümhüllung befreit, sehen wir Semiramis vor uns als eine Herrschergestalt, die zu einer Zeit, da sonst der Frau eine Beteiligung am öffentlichen Leben versagt war, die Geschichte zweier, vornehmlich durch ihre Klugheit und Umsicht verbundener Reiche in Krieg und Frieden entscheidendend und durchgreifend geleitet hat.” P. 68 (Tübingen, 1910).
How different is this conclusion of the learned German, which is based on the brilliant discoveries of Andræ and his colleagues, from that of the distinguished Orientalist, F. Lenormant, who, as the result of an exhaustive study of Semiramis, makes the ex cathedra statement “ce personage divin ... doit être definitivement rayé de l’histoire—this divine personage ought to be definitely expunged from history.” Op. cit., p. 68.
[401] Geography, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, IX.
[402] Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander, Bk. VII, Chap. VII.
[403] Voyage au Levant, Tom. III, p. 200 (Amsterdam, 1727).
[404] Ibid., III, p. 183.
[405] So hot is it in Susa, the Greek geographer writes, that “lizards and serpents at midday in the summer ... cannot cross the streets quick enough to prevent their being burnt to death midway by the heat.” Op. cit., Bk. XV, Chap. III.
[406] “There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the ‘Zauba’ah,’ as the Arabs call it. Devils or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees which are whirled like leaves and sticks in the air, and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the terror of travelers.” Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I, p. 114 (by Richard F. Burton, Benares, 1885).
[407] Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the Site of Ancient Nineveh with a Journal of a Voyage down the Tigris to Bagdad, Vol. II, p. 148 (London, 1836).
[408] Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia, Vol. II, p. 138 (London, 1875).