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National Geographic : 1941 Aug
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Bombs over Bible Lands archeology and threw a party in the bazaars. Till then, Baghdad had never heard an Ameri can college yell. Given at midnight, from the flat roof of a pilgrim inn, this strange, bark ing war cry was mistaken by the Arabs for our national anthem! Restoring the Garden of Eden Iraq's desert, centuries ago, was the granary of the world-a sea of verdure from end to end. So wrote Herodotus, rambling reporter of long ago. Herodotus was a good reporter. You see that, as you fly now up the Tigris-Euphrates basin toward Nineveh. On the plains below, you see outlines of sand-filled canals which, in their day, comprised a perfect gravity sys tem watering millions of acres. Slowly, today's Iraqis are building dams, digging ditches, and buying pumps to restore an agriculture burnt up when, centuries ago, invading enemies destroyed their canal sys tems. King Ghazi cut the ribbon that officially opened a great dam completed at Kut-al Imara in 1939. In his party that day were the American Minister to Iraq, Mr. Paul Knabenshue, and Dr. W. C. Lowdermilk of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service. "This may open a new era in this old plain where almost a dozen empires have risen and fallen in the last 7,000 years," said Dr. Low dermilk. "What impressed me was the huge banks of silt which ancients had scraped from their irrigation ditches, now mostly dry and aban doned. Some silt banks formed miniature mountain chains 50 feet high. This shows that keeping mud out of these canals was even a bigger job than digging them." Basra, Where the Dates Come From Iraq's gate to salt water is Basra, Shatt-al Arab delta town spurred to tremendous air, sea, and railroad trade activity in the last 20 years (page 180). Basra, scene of struggle between Iraq and British troops in May, 1941, may be Iraq's most strategic city. Fly over Basra, and you see miles of date orchards, part of which belong to Hills Broth ers (Dromedary Dates), an American firm. Large orchards are Arab-owned. For years Basra trade was embarrassed be cause of contention between Iran and Turkey, then Iran and Iraq, over sovereignty of the Shatt-al-Arab. Now, by treaty, the boundary line has been adjusted to rectify this unhappy situation. Nearly all the world's date trade stems from here. Dates used to be picked and thrown in piles on straw mats, exposed to dust and flies. Now the American operators have in stalled clean, sanitary packing sheds, with air cooled storage (page 176). Astonishing to newcomers is the huge air port of British Overseas Airways. It stands at Margil, a garden city suburb of fine bunga lows about a mile upstream from Basra's busi ness center. Besides its shops, weather and wireless stations, this airport has its own hotel with some 50 double rooms and baths, a fine restaurant, and a ballroom where official Basra gives its parties. Here, too, is the terminus of the Baghdad Railway, from whose sleepers in normal times travelers may take planes for India, Singapore, China, Manila, and Australia. Second world wonder near Basra is the colos sal refinery of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company on Abadan Island. This island city, in the Shatt-al-Arab, lies downstream from Basra. Crude oil comes down to it by pipe line from fields on the upper Karun River, in Iran. War Sends Freight around Robin Hood's Barn This Abadan, though even its name is al most unknown, is hugely important to Britain; in fact, she might lose the whole Iraq field, pipe line and all, and yet with Abadan safe and the Suez Canal open, her Navy would have all the fuel it needs. War's closing of the Mediterranean to com merce has boomed Basra's sea trade in an odd way. "Normally," said Mr. Marcel E. Wagner, President of the American Eastern Corpora tion, "we ship steel, tires, motorcars, pumps, airplanes, etc., from New York to Egypt at about $17 a ton. But when President Roose velt closed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to American ships, we had to send our goods by the Isthmian Steamship Lines clear around the Cape of Good Hope, up the Indian Ocean to Basra, up to Baghdad, then by rail or truck to Turkey or Syria, and then by boat again, across the Mediterranean to Alexandria. "This multiplied freight costs ten times. Naturally, some cargo couldn't finish the trip, because it wasn't worth $170 a ton, but some went all the way. "Here was another odd fact of commercial geography. You don't think of American ships making money hauling goods from Egypt to Iraq. But, as agents for the Isthmian Lines, we saw them do just that; we collected over a million dollars for such freight in less than one year. A lot of that money was paid for hauling iron bedsteads made in Egypt and 175
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