arise on its banks of which it might be said that her merchants were the great men of the earth."
" Noteworthy in this connection," observes another writer, " is the watchful eye of the German Imperial Government upon the railway in course of construction from Konia (the biblical Iconium) to Bagdad. Some six hundred miles of the Anatolian, or Euphratean, line have already been opened to traffic." In short, there is a general impression that this region, the highway between Asia and Europe, and contiguous to Africa, is about to become a great " com mercial centre of gravity." The new Turkish Government (in contrast to the old regime) is very keen on the develop ment of the resources[1] of that ancient and naturally fertile region, and alive to the very important aid which Jewish capital and energy could render in that direction. Very recently, therefore, they engaged the services of a distin guished English hydraulic engineer, Sir William Willcocks, K.C.M.G., to survey the district and report on the estab lishment and development of irrigation works. He returned full of enthusiasm, declaring that his " future hopes, ambitions, and work are bound up with the re-creation of Chaldea."
A very interesting paper which he read at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society last November is published in The Geographical Journal for January 1910. The following are his concluding remarks: " In her long history of many thousands of years, Babylonia has again and again been submerged, but she has always risen with an energy and thoroughness rivalling the very completeness and suddenness of her fall. She has never failed to respond to those who have striven to raise her. Again, it seems that the time has come for this land, long wasted with misery, to rise from the very dust and take her place by the side of her ancient rival, the land of Egypt.
" The works we are proposing are drawn on sure and truthful lines, and the day they are carried out the two great rivers will hasten to respond, and Babylon will yet
- ↑ All this was written in 1910.
