The New Student's Reference Work/Bagdad

Bag'dad, the capital of the province of the same name in the southeast of Asiatic Turkey. It lies on both sides of the Tigris, which is spanned by a bridge of boats 220 yards long. The city is surrounded by a brick wall five miles around and forty feet high, with four gates. The place looks picturesque from the outside, but a closer view shows dirty, narrow streets and houses without windows in front. The insides of the buildings, however, are often gorgeous, with vaulted ceilings, rich mouldings, inlaid mirrors and massive gildings. The mosques and bazaars are the most noticeable of the buildings. Though the former great traffic of Bagdad has been greatly cut off since Persia began to trade with Europe through Trebizond on the north and by the Persian Gulf on the south, the bazaars are still filled with the produce of both Turkish and European markets, and many European houses keep agents in the town. Red and yellow leather, silk and cotton goods are manufactured, and dates, wool, grain and timbac (a substitute for tobacco) are exported. Rain does not fall for more than twenty or thirty days during the year, but when the snows melt on the hills of Armenia, the Tigris is filled, and floods often lay waste the country. In 1831 a flood destroyed half the town and several thousand people. Bagdad is sometimes visited with the cholera, from which disease 4,000 people perished daily for several days in 1830.

Discoveries around Bagdad have shown that it dates back to the time of Nebuchadrezzar. About 754 it became the seat of the Mohammedan empire, and was long famous as the home of the caliphs. The Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid and his son in the 9th century greatly improved the city and made it the seat of Arabic learning and literature. It has been frequently taken by the Turks and Persians. While at one time its population was estimated at 2,000,000, it is reported now to have only 150,000, made up of Turks, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Armenians, Hindoos, Afghans and Persians. The province or vilayet of Bagdad (in Mesopotamia), lying between Persia and Arabia, includes the greater part of the basin of the lower Tigris and Euphrates—are, 54,540 square miles. The population of the province is about 615,000.