Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
coarse grasses, " their unwieldy bodies often entirely concealed
under water and their hideous heads just visible upon
the surface." Wild animals, boars and hyenas, jackals and
wolves, and an occasional lion, infest the jungles. Here
and there a small plot of ground, a shallow island, a hightowering
ruin, bare of every sign of vegetation, ana towards
the north large elevated tracts of barren soil covered with
fragments of brick and glass and stone appear above the
horizon of these pestiferous marshes. Half-naked men,
women, and children, almost black from constant exposure
to the sun, inhabit these desolate regions. Filthy huts of
reeds and mats are their abodes during the night ; in long
pointed boats of the same material they skim by day over
the waters, pasturing their flocks, or catching fish with the
spear. To sustain their life, they cultivate a little rice,
barlev, and maize, on the edges of the inundations. Generallv
good-natured and humorous like children, these
Ma'dan tribes get easily excited, and at the slightest provocation
are ready to fight with each other. Practicing the
vices more than the virtues of the Arab race, extremely
ignorant and superstitious, they live in the most primitive
state of barbarism and destitution, despised by the
Bedouins of the desert, who frequently drive their cattle and
sheep away and plunder their little property during the
winter.
Restlessly shifting nomads in the north and ignorant
swamp dwellers in the south have become the legitimate
heirs of Asshur and Babel. What contrast between ancient
civilization and modern degeneration ! The mighty kings
of vore have passed awav, their empires were shattered,
their countries destroved. Nineveh and Babylon seemed
completely to have vanished from the earth. Hundreds of
vears were necessarv to revive the interest in their history
and to determine merely their sites, while the exploration
of their principal ruins, the deciphering of their inscriptions,