Baghdad is considered thoroughly Oriental, and may appear so to the traveller who makes his entrance to Mesopotamia this way; but to one coming from the interior it has a flavour of new Turkey, semi-reformed, and unimproved. The big street that runs right through the town, to stop short at the garden wall of the British Consulate, is by way of being a parable of young Turkey, that started out with magnificent projects but without weighing the difficulties in the way, or its own powers of overcoming them. In this particular case, the Vali of the town, anxious to set about his improvements, proposed to drive a road through the gardens of the British Residency, without with your leave or by your leave; regardless of the fact that the street, if desired, could be taken with equal ease by another route, where he would have found the British authorities ready to co-operate and assist. When the Consul protested, the road-makers were told to go on and carry out their orders; and only the ominous presence of a sepoy sentry on the top of the wall they proposed to demolish made them hold their hands. It was a reproduction in little of the British sentry who promenaded the Pont de Jena at Paris when Blucher proposed to blow up that offensively named structure. To pull down a wall was nothing, but to knock down the sentry was a more formidable thing.
It is melancholy, however, and suggests the presence of a malevolent demon, when you see high-minded men set on carrying out lofty aims in such a way that they must fail, and that their own best friends are unable either to save or to help them. That has been the bane of Turkey since her revolution, coupled with an invincible ignorance of the truth that phrases will not clean pigsties.
Baghdad is the necessary starting-point for a pilgrimage to Babylon; and there are facilities for the expedition, in that the place lies only just to one side of the road to Kerbela,[{351}] whither go Shiah pilgrims every day in scores. Hence carriages are easily to be got, with relays of beasts on the way, and a start in the late afternoon will bring the traveller to Babylon in time for breakfast next day.
These conveyances are rude wagonettes, provided with springs in plenty, and drawn by four mules or horses harnessed abreast. The seats provided are merely hard wooden slats, narrow and uncomfortable, and the European is not advised to make use of them. A long cord passed from side to side across the carriage, so as to make a sort of hammock on which a camp mattress may be placed, is far preferable, and enables one to lie at ease all the night through. Whether one will get much sleep is questionable. The road is a mere unmetalled track, and the horses go at a brisk hand-gallop, taking all irregularities as they come; so that the carriage is apt to play “cup and ball” with its contents all the way. However, a halt from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. affords a welcome respite.
Still if the European cannot sleep, the native is of a superior type. Our assistant driver passed most of the journey rolled up in a ball under the feet of his superior on the box. There, though apparently in momentary danger of tumbling off under the wheels, he snored without interruption, under conditions that might have kept the Fat Boy wakeful and alert, never stirring save at the halts, and perhaps not being really roused even then. It is certain that he got off, took the collars from one set of animals and put them on to the next; but the act seemed absolutely mechanical and somnambulistic, and when it was accomplished he rolled into his place again and snored once more.
With the dawn we were making our way through a gap in that great wall that so struck the imagination of Herodotus, and which still runs like an abandoned railway embankment across the level plain. One must question, however, whether the great structure was really (as the “Father of History” tells us) built of burnt brick throughout, “laid in bitumen, and bonded with reeds at every thirty courses.” Faced with that material it probably was; but it certainly[{352}] has the appearance of being built, like most of the houses of the town, of unbaked mud.
Germans as hospitable as their compatriots at Assur received us at Babylon, and showed what they, working on the same thorough plan as their comrades, have uncovered of the greatest city of the ancient world.
Three great mounds, or sets of mounds, cover the ruins of Babylon, viz. Babil, Kasr (the palace mound), and Amran. It is the centre one of these that is now being excavated; though what has been uncovered is little but the foundations and basements of buildings, or in many cases nothing but the “matrices” from which every single burnt brick has been removed. The city has been used as a brick-quarry for centuries, Baghdad and various other towns being built almost entirely from this material; and it is a rather melancholy reflection that, when the Germans have finished their work, it is most probable that every brick they have uncovered will follow the others in the course of a few years. No matter how deep they bury them, they will be dug up, for good burnt building material commands its price in a city like Baghdad. One must get what consolation one can from the fact that at least good and accurate plans of the whole will be available.
All the buildings of the central mound are uncovered now, presenting to the casual visitor the appearance of a mere bewildering maze of brickwork, in which it is very easy to get lost, though all is clear enough to the expert eyes of the guide. Practically all that has been found is of the date of Nebuchadnezzar; for only one building above ground is the work of his father, Nabopolassar, and the most systematic borings have found nothing below.
At first sight it is strange that a city which was ancient in the days of Abraham should have no monuments older than those of a man who came very late in her history, and was in fact a sort of Louis XIV of Chaldaea; but there is an historical explanation of the fact. Babylon was utterly destroyed by Sennacherib of Assyria at about the time Rome was in building, it being the intention of that ruler that no man should dwell there more. This was his punishment[{353}] for the series of rebellions against his authority, stirred up by that Merodach Baladan of Chaldaea, whose ambassadors make one transitory appearance in the Book of Kings. The awe which the whole world felt at this destruction of the most ancient and venerable of cities is reflected in the words of Isaiah: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the ground.”