Tigray

“ Or, again, for mystery and romance, here is another scene on the Tigris between Amara and Kut.
The evening is still. No breeze stirs the sliding surface of the river. On every side immeasurable plains stretch from horizon to horizon, "dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom of leaden-coloured even," save where the misty blue ridge of the Persian mountains links heaven to earth, gleaming with a ghostly chain of snow beneath a rose-flushed sky. A few marsh Arabs' reed huts and a distant fire are the only signs that the world is inhabited. ”

“ Reedy marshes, alive with water-fowl, arable lands, bare buff plains, brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts, mud and brick villages, groups of women and children, flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly,—the unchanging features are the posts and wires of the telegraph.
The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at one great bend, "The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can walk the distance in less than an hour which takes the steamer four hours to accomplish. ”

“ It is said that a discovery, which happened in the king’s feigned illness, promoted this sudden revolution of manners. In one of his secret tours through Begemder, (after Tigré, the most powerful province in Abyssinia, and by much the most plentiful) being disguised like a poor man, dirty and fatigued with the length of the way and heat of the weather, he came to the house of a private person, not very rich, 605 indeed, but of noble manners and carriage, and who, by the justice and mildness of his behaviour and customs, had acquired a great degree of influence among his neighbours. ”

“ All the semi-nomadic tribes which densely peopled the banks of the Tigris, and whose advance towards the north had been temporarily favoured by the weakness of Assyria—the Gambulu, the Pukudu, the Eutu, and the Itua—had a natural tendency to join forces with Elam for the purpose of raiding the wealthy cities of Chaldæa, and this alliance, or subjection, as it might be more properly termed, always insured them against any reprisals on the part of their victims. The unknown king who dwelt at Susa in 745 B.C. committed the error of allowing Tiglath-pileser to crush these allies. ”

“ Geography.—The civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria grew up on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Tigris was called Idikna and Idikla in the Sumerian or primitive language of Babylonia, from which the Semites formed the name Idiklat, by means of the feminine suffix -t. In later times the name was shortened into Diklat, and finally assimilated by the Persians to the word Tigra, which in their language signified 'an arrow.' It is from Tigra that the classical name Tigris is derived. ”

“ We rode up the bank of the Tigris, and when we came opposite to Tell Nimrûd there, by good fortune, was a ferry-boat, plying across the river with the men and flocks of the Jebbûr. The cause of their migration to the left bank was hopping about our feet—locusts, newly issued from the rocky ground and swarming over every blade of grass and corn.
“In two days there will be no pasture, and our flocks will die,” explained an aged shepherd. “Let the consul cross!” he shouted, as the ferry-boat drew up beside the bank and half the tribe clambered into it. ”

“ CHAPTER I. THE STORY OF NINUS AND SEMIRAMIS.
About the middle course of the Tigris, where the mountain wall of the Armenian plateau steeply descends to the south, there is a broad stretch of hilly country. To the west it is traversed by a few water-courses only, which spring out of the mountains of Sindyar, and unite with the Tigris; from the east the affluents are far more abundant. On the southern shore of the lake of Urumiah the edge of the plateau of Iran abuts on the Armenian table-land, and then, stretching to the south-east, it bounds the river valley of the Tigris toward the east. ”

“ Where this flat belt, or country, is broadest, the trees thickest, and the water in the largest pools, there the most powerful nations live, who have often defeated the royal army of Abyssinia, and constantly laid waste, and sometimes nearly conquered, the provinces of Tigré and Siré, the most warlike and most populous part in Abyssinia.
The most considerable settlement of this nation is at Amba Tzaada, between the Mareb and Tacazzé, but nearer by one-third to the Mareb, and almost N. W. from Dobarwa. ”

“ When things have been in existence as long as the mounds on the Tigris, and when bricks have been turned up as often as the Arabs have unearthed them, these things are accepted without question as a matter of course. Neither Turks nor Arabs troubled about the mounds. It was left to foreigners to prove that these lofty eminences were the handiwork of man, and that the mounds on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates covered all that was left of Assyria and Babylonia. ”

“ Immediately after the union of these two rivers the Tigris enters another mountainous territory formed of sandstone. The gentle curves of the broad and shallow river are transformed into the sharp criss-cross angles of a ravine. The banks are abrupt, often vertical on both sides; and on top of some steep, rocky slopes your eye may discover groves of dark-green palms, and in their shadows the settlements of tribes of Kurds, who in this region are mostly cave-dwellers. ”

“ It is a big place upon a cliff that juts out into the broad Tigris; tawny, like the desert out of which it rises, its great mosque standing clear above all, with that clean, new appearance that any strong building must possess in this clear, dry atmosphere. No trees adorn its streets, they are as desert as the plain outside. Only upon the opposite side are a few gardens, and the remains of a bridge of boats, which affords sufficient excuse for the Turks to take a toll from all who pass down the stream. ”

“ On a rock at one of the sources of the Eastern Tigris near Karkar we see his image hewn in relief. He wears the tall cap or kidaris; the hair and beard are long and curled; the robe falls in deep folds to the ancles. The inscription runs: "By the grace of Asshur, Samas and Bin, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath Pilesar, am ruler from the great sea of the west land (mat acharri) to the lake of the land of Nairi. Three times I have marched to the land of Nairi." [52] The first subjugation of this district could not, therefore, have been complete. ”

“ The flowery meadows, shady groves, and rich vallies, with which the former abounds, are celebrated for the resort of numerous pilgrims, professedly devout, who clothe themselves in a yellow dress, with a cord round their waists, and pass their time there in religious and secluded retirement; but the satirical vein of pleasantry which distinguishes the Tigrians ascribes to them more unseemly motives: and scandal does not hesitate to say that Love, not of the purest kind, presides over their retreat. ”

“ The wheels were turned by oxen, driven by Dinka slaves, who sang vociferous melodies the while, and the water was conveyed to fields distant from the river in the hollow trunks of the doum-tree.
There, where I expected to sail through a wilderness, I found a garden. Ethiopia might become, in other hands, the richest and most productive part of Africa. The people are industrious and peaceable, and deserve better masters. Their dread of the Turks is extreme, and so is their hatred. ”

“ There is a march peculiar to the troops of Tigrè, which, when the drums of Tesfos beat at passing, a despondency seemed to fall on all the Tigran soldiers, greater than if ten thousand men of Amhara had joined the rebels. It was a fine day, and the troops, spread abroad upon the face of the hill, not only shewed more in number than they really were, but also more security than they were, in point of prudence, warranted to do, when at so small a distance from such an army as ours. ”

“ TIGRANOCERTA, a town of Armenia Major, built by Tigranes in the time of the Mithridatic war. The river Nicephorus washes one side of the town. Brotier says, it is now called Sert or Sered.
TIGRIS, a great river bounding the country called Mesopotamia to the east, while the Euphrates incloses it to the west. Pliny gives an account of the Tigris, in its rise and progress, till it sinks under ground near Mount Taurus, and breaks forth again with a rapid current, falling at last into the Persian Gulf. ”

“ In this valley, amongst the trees, we found the flocks and horses of the Waled Bou Seif feeding. This tribe—the children of the Father of the Sword—are wandering Arabs, who have never acknowledged the authority of the Tripoli Government. They possess flocks, camels, and horses,—every element, in fact, of desert wealth. All the mountains near and round about Mizdah are claimed by them as their country, which has never, perhaps, been reduced by any power but the Roman. A young man of the tribe, who was tending some sheep in the valley, came to visit us. ”

“ I was not more anxious to arrive at the city of Bagdad than I was to leave it; and having written letters, and put them in a way of being forwarded to Europe, I took leave of my friendly hospitable Armenian, and, with a thousand acknowledgments for his kindness, set out on horseback to a place on the Tigris, where I embarked in a boat, in order to proceed to Bassora. This river, known since the first records of human existence by Geographers, is remarkable for its rapidity, whence, Pliny says, it has the name of Tigris, (in the Median language, a dart) ”

“ At this time of year nearly seven hours are required to descend the Tigris, from Mosul to Nimroud. It was sunset before we reached the Awai, or dam across the river. We landed and walked to a small hamlet called Naifa. We had entered a heap of ruins, but were welcomed by an Arab family crouching round a heap of half-extinguished embers. The half-naked children and women retreated into a corner of the hut. The man, clad in ample cloak and white turban, being able to speak a little Turkish, and being active and intelligent, seemed likely to be of use to me. ”

“ Reaches me, my friend, in a manner that I will not explain; news sometimes small and petty, sometimes of great doings, of great events. Listen now, whilst Esbul brings food before you. My master, you desire news of your friends, of your expedition which has come to Mesopotamia, which fought its way to Basra and Kurnah, and from thence advanced up the Tigris to Amara? You desire tidings of those friends whom you accompanied to Nasiriyeh, and of those others who struck to the north-east and seized Ahwaz? ”

“ The high range of mountains in Samen, extending from Waldubha to the south of Lasta, together with the line of the Tacazze, which shapes its course north-easterly along its base, sufficiently point out the boundaries of the two larger divisions of Tigré and Amhara: and when we consider, in addition to these natural obstacles to communication, that the inhabitants of both countries speak distinct languages, and are so materially different in character, it can only remain matter of surprise, that they ever became united under one government. ”

“ The names and sources of the different streams forming the Western Tigris—or that part of the upper river which runs, roughly speaking, from Diarbekr to the junction with the Eastern Tigris, about 50 miles north-north-west from Jezíra Ibn Omar—are given by Consul Taylor as the Arganeh M'adan and the Dibeneh Su, uniting at Ammaneh castle; the Ambar Su, rising at Heyni; the Batman Su, formed by the Kulp, the Kaushan, and the Sarum, rising north and north-west of Nerjiki ”

“ Standing at the mouth of the Blue Nile, which flows down from the gold and iron mountains of Abyssinia, and of the White Nile, the only avenue to a dozen Negro kingdoms, rich in ivory and gum, and being nearly equidistant from the conquered provinces of Sennaar, Kordofan, Shendy and Berber, it speedily outgrew the old Ethiopian cities, and drew to itself the greater part of their wealth and commercial activity. Now it is the metropolis of all the eastern part of Soudân, and the people speak of it in much the same style as the Egyptians speak of their beloved Cairo. ”

“ The plain, bounded by the Tigris, the great and lesser Zab, and the Kurdish hills, is renowned for its fertility. It is the granary of Baghdad, and it is a common saying amongst the Arabs, “that if there were a famine over the rest of the earth, Shomamok (for so the principal part of the plain is called) would still have its harvest.” This district belongs chiefly to the Tai Arabs, who wander from pasture to pasture, and leave the cultivation of the soil to small sedentary tribes of Arabs, Turcomans, and Kurds, who dwell in villages, and pay an annual tribute in money or in kind. ”

“ Tigré is said, by the Jesuits, and by M. Le Grande their historian, to be full of mountains, so high that the Alps and Apennines were very inconsiderable in comparison. And suppose it was otherwise, there is no navigable river, indeed no river at all, that runs through Tigré into the Red Sea, and there is the desert of Samhar to pass, where there is no water at all. How is it possible a ship from the coast of Malabar should get up 200 miles from any sea among the mountains of Tigré? ”

“ The effect of my late journies has tended to increase the preponderance of Tigré: and it appears to me that the only plan, which offers a hope of restoring any thing like a regular form of government into the distracted country of Abyssinia, would be to promote still further the welfare of that province, by removing the obstructions which interrupt her communications with the coast, and by establishing thence a free intercourse with the British settlements in the East. ”