called the Khandak Sabūr or “Sapor’s trench,” being ascribed
to the Sassanian king, Shapur I. Dholahtaf, but is now known as
the Cherra-Saadeh, and is in the popular tradition said to have
been excavated by a man from Basra at the behest of a woman
of Hit whom he desired to make his wife. How early this work
was begun is not clear, but it would appear to have been at least
largely reconstructed in the time of the great Nebuchadrezzar.
The next important canal, the Dujayl (Dojail), left the Euphrates
on the left, about a league above Ramadiya (Ar-Rabb), and
flowed into the Tigris between Ukbara and Bagdad. The ʽIsa,
which is largely identical with the modern Sakhlawiya, left the
Euphrates a little below Anbar (Perisabora) and joined the Tigris
at Bagdad. This canal still carries water and was navigable for
steamboats until about 1875. Sarsar, the modern Abu-Ghurayb,
leaves the Euphrates three leagues lower down and enters the
Tigris between Bagdad and Ctesiphon. The Nahr Malk or
royal river, modern Radhwaniya, leaves the Euphrates five
leagues below this and joins the Tigris three leagues below
Ctesiphon; while the Kutha, modern Habl-Ibrahim, leaving
the Euphrates three leagues below the Malk joins the Tigris
ten leagues below Ctesiphon. In the time of the Arabs these
were the chief canals, and the cuts from the main channels of the
Nahr ʽIsa, Nahr Sarsar, Nahr Malk (or Nahr Malcha), and Nahr
Kutha, reticulating the entire country between the rivers, converted
it into a continuous and luxuriant garden.
Just below Mussaib there has been for all ages a great bifurcation of the river. The right arm was the original bed, and the left arm, on which Babylon was built, the artificial deviation, as is clear from the cuneiform inscriptions. In the time of Alexander the nomenclature was reversed, the right arm being known as Pallacopas. Under the Arabs the old designation again prevailed and the Euphrates is always described by the Arabian geographers as the river which flows direct to Kufa, while the present stream, passing along the ruins of Babylon to Hillah and Diwanieh, has been universally known as the Nahr Sura. Occidental geographers, however, have followed the Greek use, and so to-day we call the river of Babylon or Nahr Sura the Euphrates and the older westerly channel the Hindieh canal. At the present time the preservation of the embankments about the point of bifurcation demands the constant care of the Bagdad government. The object is to allow sufficient water to drain off to the westward for the due irrigation of the land, while the Hillah bed still retains the main volume of the stream, and is navigable to the sea. But it frequently happens that the dam at the head of the Hindieh is carried away, and, a free channel being thus opened for the waters of the river to the westward, the Hillah bed shoals to 2 or 3 ft., or even dries up altogether, while the country to the west of the river is turned into lakes and swamps. Below the bifurcation the river of Babylon was again divided into several streams, and indeed the most famous of all the ancient canals was the Arakhat (Archous of the Greeks and Serrāt and Nil of the Arabs), which left that river just above Babylon and ran due east to the Tigris, irrigating all the central part of the Jezīreh, and sending down a branch through Nippur and Erech to rejoin the Euphrates a little above the modern Nasrieh. The Narss, also, the modern Daghara, which is still navigable to Nippur and beyond, left the Sura a little below Hillah; and at the present day another large canal, the Kehr, branches off near Diwanieh. It is easy to distinguish the great primitive watercourses from the lateral ducts which they fed, the latter being almost without banks and merely traceable by the winding curves of the layers of alluvium in the bed, while the former are hedged in by high banks of mud, heaped up during centuries of dredging.
Not a hundredth part of the old irrigation system is now in working order. A few of the mouths of the smaller canals are kept open so as to receive a limited supply of water at the rise of the river in May, which then distributes itself over the lower lying lands in the interior, almost without labour on the part of the cultivators, giving birth in such localities to the most abundant crops, but by far the larger portion of the region between the rivers is at present an arid howling wilderness dotted with tels or ruin-heaps, strewn in the most part with broken pottery, the evidence of former habitation, and bearing nothing but the camel-thorn, the wild caper, the colocynth-apple, wormwood and other weeds of the desert. The swamps are full of huge reeds, bordered with tamarisk jungles, and in its lower reaches, where the water stretches out into great marshes, the river is clogged with a growth of agrostis. To obtain a correct idea of this region it must be borne in mind also that the course of the river and the features of the country on both banks are subject to constant fluctuation. The Hindieh canal and the main stream, the ancient Sura, rejoin one another at Samawa. Down to this point, the bed of the Euphrates being higher than that of the Tigris, the canals run from the former to the latter, but below this the situation is reversed. At Nasrieh the Shatt-el-Haï, at one time the bed of the Tigris, and still navigable during the greater part of the year, joins the Euphrates. From this point downward, and to some extent above this as far as Samawa, the river forms a succession of reedy lagoons of the most hopeless character, the Paludes Chaldaici of antiquity, el Batihāt of the Arabs. Along this part of its course the river is apt to be choked with reeds and, except where bordered by lines of palm trees, the channel loses itself in lakes and swamps. The inhabitants of this region are wild and inhospitable and utterly beyond the control of the Turkish authorities, and navigation of the river between Korna and Suk-esh-Sheiukh is unsafe owing to the attacks of armed pirates. From Garmat Ali, where the Tigris and Euphrates at present unite,[1] under the title of Shatt-el-Arab, the river sweeps on to Basra, 1000 yds. in width and from 3 to 5 fathoms deep, navigable for steamers of good size. From Korna to Basra the banks of the river are well cultivated and the date groves almost continuous; indeed this is the greatest date-producing region of the world. Twenty-five miles below Basra the river Karun from Shushter and Dizful throws off an arm, which seems to be artificial, into the Euphrates. This arm is named the Haffār, and at the confluence is situated the Persian town of Muhamrah, a place most conveniently located for trade. In this vicinity was situated, at the time of the Christian era, the Parthian city of Spasini-Charax, which was succeeded by Bahman Ardashir (Bamishir) under the Sassanians, and by Moharzi under the Arabs. The left bank of the river from this point belongs to Persia. It consists of an island named Abbadan, about 45 m. long, formed by alluvial deposits during the last fifteen centuries. (For the character of this alluvium and its rate of deposit see Irak.)
Even more than the upper and middle Euphrates the lower Euphrates, from Hit downward, abounds in ruins of ancient towns and cities, from the earliest prehistoric period onward to the close of the Caliphate (see Irak). The fact also that many of the most ancient of these ruins, like Ur, Lagash (Sirpurla), Larsa, Erech, Nippur, Sippara and Babylon, were situated on the banks of the great canals would indicate that the control of the waters of the rivers by a system of canalization and irrigation was one of the first achievements of civilization. This ancient system of canalization was inherited from the Persians (who, in turn, inherited it from their predecessors), by the Arabs, who long maintained it in working order, and the astonishing fertility and consequent prosperity of the country watered by the Euphrates, its tributaries and its canals, is noticed by all ancient writers. The land itself, an alluvial deposit, is very fruitful. Wheat and the date palm seem to have been indigenous, and the latter is still one of the chief productions of the country, but in later years rice has taken the place of wheat as the staff of life. The decline of the country dates from the appearance of Turkish nomads in the 11th century; its ruin was completed by the Shammar Arabs in the 17th century; but, if the ancient system of irrigation were restored, sufficient grain could be grown to alter the conditions of the wheat supply of the world. At the present time, instead of the innumerable
- ↑ The confluence for about 500 years was at Korna, over 30 m. higher up. Sir W. Willcocks discovered (1909) that from Suk-esh-Sheiukh the Euphrates had formed a new channel through the marshes. (See Geog. Journal, Jan. 1910).
