by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
When the promenade had been transformed into Conference Hall, thearrangement for the maps had not been forgotten, and the frame had beenset up against the after end of the pilot-house. It covered the twowindows; but they were not needed when the ship was at sea. When theprofessor made his bow, Mr. Gaskette exposed to the view of the audiencea map which had been completed before the steamer arrived at Port Said;and all the way through the canal he and his assistants had been busyupon others.
"Perhaps I ought to apologize for this map, Captain Ringgold," said Mr.Gaskette, when he had unrolled the huge sheet; "for the boundaries ofthese ancient countries are so indefinite in the great atlas that I havenot been able to lay down all of them."
"You have done exceedingly well, Mr. Gaskette, and I think the professorcan ask for nothing better than you have given him," replied thecommander.
"Certainly not," added the learned gentleman. "I can give the boundariesno more definitely than they are presented on this beautiful map. I amextremely delighted to have the assistance which it will afford me. Theartist might have guessed at some of the division lines, as others havedone. He has given us Mesopotamia, Susiana, and the region between them,and that is all I desire.
"Perhaps I shall disappoint you, Mr. Commander, by the meagreness of mydescription of these ancient countries; for these subjects in detailwould be very tiresome to the company under present circumstances, and Ipropose to bring out only a few salient points in regard to them," saidthe professor.
"The only thing I feared, Professor, was that you would go into them toodiffusely, forgetting that your audience are not savants, or evencollege students, such as you have been in the habit of addressing. I amvery glad to find that you have just the right idea in regard to thesituation," replied Captain Ringgold.
"It is fortunate that we agree," continued the instructor, as he tookthe pointer and turned to the map. "This map lays before you the regionlying to the north-east of Arabia, on the port hand of the ship, as thecommander would say; and with your imagination you can look over thesemountains and sands and see it. You observe that Syria is on the west ofthe northern part of it, with Armenia just where it is now, on the northof it, though there was more of it then than now; for in ancient timesit reached to the Caspian Sea. An old lady in the country at whose houseI used to spend my vacation used to call things that could not bechanged as fixed as the laws of the 'Medes and Parsicans.' She meantthe Medes and Persians; and Media, now a part of Persia, was the easternboundary of the region mapped out On the south-east is Susiana, now alarge portion of Persia.
"This beautiful map tempts me to be more diffuse than I should have beenwithout it; but it gives you a bit of ancient geography which will doyou no harm. There are two great rivers which extend through thisterritory, the Euphrates and the Tigris, though both of them unite andflow into the Persian Gulf. Of the former of them the commander hasspoken to you this morning. Scholars have not been able to locateParadise, or the Garden of Eden, with anything like precision; but it isgenerally supposed to have been between these two great streams. Somethink it was not a place at all, but only a location given to a moralidea; others place it in the mountains of Armenia or NorthernMesopotamia."
"The pesky Bible critics!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom; but Mrs. Belgrave"hunched her" as the good lady expressed it.
"All this region has been in the possession of various masters, and eventhe countries themselves are very much mixed. Assyria was the easternportion of the northern part," continued the professor, indicating thelocation with his wand. "In the British Museum and elsewhere you haveseen bass-reliefs and figures brought from the ruins of Assyrian cities,and in these the country is called Assur. In Genesis x. 11, we read:'Out of that land [Shinar] went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh.'This was said of Nimrod; Shinar was a name of Babylonia.
"The history becomes complicated, and is a record of the achievements ofthe Assyrian kings, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and others. Itwould not be profitable to go over them. The Babylonian monarchy wasbefore Assyria was founded. The government was a despotism with nothingto soften it, and the religion was the worship of many gods. Its historydates back from 913 to 659 years before the birth of Christ, thoughthere are tablets which carry it back to 2330 A.D. The empire began todecay in the reign of Sardanapalus, when the governor of Babylon and theking of Media conspired against it; and Nineveh was captured anddestroyed a little more than 600 years before Christ."
The commander announced another recess at this time, though the partyappeared to be very much interested in the story of these ancientcountries, closely connected with Bible history. Half an hour was spentin walking the deck and gazing at the shores, which were still the same,for the ship was yet in the Gulf of Suez. After this rest the professorresumed his place on the rostrum.
"This is Babylonia, as it is now called to distinguish it from Babylon,the city," said the instructor, as he pointed to the region along theshores of the southern Euphrates, and to the city on both sides of it."In the Scripture it is called Shinar, Babel, and 'the Land of theChaldees.' It was and is a very rich and fertile country, extensivelyirrigated in modern times. Susiana is now a part of Persia, and the restof the territory represented on the map is included in Turkey in Asia.
"The people were of the Semitic race; in other words, they weredescended from Shem, the son of Noah; but Babylonia in the past andpresent is a land of many races and languages, and the readers of theinscriptions have been bothered by the variety of tongues. The Britishand the New York Museum have figures and tablets revealing the historyof Babylonia. But it takes an archaeologist to translate theirdiscoveries. The relations of the monuments indicate that the antiquityof Babylonia reaches back about as far as that of Egypt. A stone in theBritish Museum brought from this locality has the name of Sargon I.,king of Akkad, is reliably vouched for as coming down from the year 3800B.C.
"The ancient tablets inform us that Narbonassar ascended his throne in747 (all these dates are B.C.). He reigned fourteen years, which weretaken up in wars with Assyria, in which the latter got the best of it inthe end. Then, in 625, invasions from the east afforded the Babyloniansthe opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Assyria, and Nabopolassarbecame king. In 604 he was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, who wasaccounted one of the greatest monarchs that ever ruled the empire.
"In the forty-three years of his reign he recovered the lost provincesof the kingdom, and made his country the queen of the nations of histime. He rebuilt the city of Babylon, and restored all the temples andpublic edifices. It is said that not a single mound has been opened inthis territory in which were not found bricks, cylinders, or tablets onwhich his name was inscribed. He captured Jerusalem, and a year laterdestroyed it, sending most of its people to Chaldea. He died in 561, andwas succeeded by his son.
"This son was murdered; and there was confusion again till 556, when thethrone was usurped by Nabonidus, the son of a soothsayer, who became awise and active prince, and his reign ranks next in importance to thatof Nebuchadnezzar. His name is found in almost all the templesunearthed. After he had ruled seventeen years, all Babylonia revoltedagainst him because he neglected his religious duties, as well as thoseof the court, leaving all the business to be done by his son Belshazzar.
"At this point the historians get mixed again. Some say that Belshazzarwas the last king of Babylonia. In Daniel v. 30, we read: 'In that nightwas Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Mediantook the kingdom.' Xenophon informs us that Babylon was taken in thenight while the inhabitants were engaged in feasting and revelry, andthat the king was killed. To this extent sacred and profane historyagree. The country became a Persian province. Then it was conquered byAlexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323. It was also a part ofthe Roman Empire at two different times.
"In 650 the successors of Mohammed overthrew the Persian monarchy, andthe province was the seat of the caliphs till
A.D. 1258. On the Tigrisin this region is the city of Bagdad, the capital of a province of thesame name. Here lived and reigned the Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, orHaroun 'the Orthodox,' who is more famous in story than in history,though he was a wise ruler, a poet, and a scholar, and built up hisdomain. I have disposed of the two principal empires of this region,pictured on the map; and the next in order is Persia."
"You haven't told us about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, said to beone of the great wonders of the world," suggested Mrs. Belgrave.
"They are hardly historical; but I will give you what I recall inrelation to them. One writer says they were built by Queen Semiramis,the wife of Ninus, an alleged founder of Nineveh. She was a beautifulgirl, brought up by Simmas, a shepherd, from whom her name is derived.One of the king's generals fell in love with her and married her. Thenhe himself was smitten by her beauty, and wanted her himself; thehusband was good-natured enough to commit suicide, and she became queen.Ninus soon died in a very accommodating manner, and Semiramis reignedalone for over forty years.
"Others regard the wonderful gardens as the work of Nebuchadnezzar.Diodorus Siculus and Strabo have described them. They are said to havecovered about four acres, built on terraces, supported by arches ofbrick or stone, and were seventy-five feet high. They were watered froma reservoir at the top, to which water was forced from the Euphrates.Fountains and banquet halls were placed on the various terraces, as wellas gardens of flowers. Trees, groves, and avenues gave a variety to thescene, and the view of the vast city was magnificent."
The professor retired; and another recess followed at the word of thecommander, who thought his school was doing admirably, and he wasanxious not to overdo the matter.
"I am afraid it will take all day for me to dispose of the subjectsassigned to me," said the professor, as he took his place again.
"I hope it will," replied Mr. Woolridge. "Very much to my surprise, Ihave become deeply interested in the subjects you present, Professor."
"It is better than the theatre," added Miss Blanche in a low tone toLouis.
"I shall give you only a few fragments in regard to Persia, and leaveSyria to be considered when the Guardian-Mother makes her trip toPalestine. Persia is called Iran by the natives, and it is the largestand most powerful native kingdom of Western Asia. It includes theprovinces of Susiana, Persis, and Media on the map, and extends from thePersian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, with Afghanistan and Beloochistan onthe east, and Asia Minor on the west.
"A considerable portion of the country is mountainous, and between theElburz range and the Caspian Sea is an extinct volcano 18,600 feet high.About three-fourths of Persia is practically a desert for want of rainor artificial irrigation. In California, Colorado, and other States, ourpeople have transformed just such regions into fertile districts. But inspite of the fact that such a large portion of the country is a desert,some parts are exceedingly fertile and beautiful. Some immense valleys,even a hundred miles wide, are of this character, and the productions ofthe country are varied and valuable. It has no navigable rivers, thoughmany of large size and volume, some of which are beginning to be usedfor purposes of irrigation. There are many salt lakes.
"The climate is varied; as Cyrus said to Xenophon, 'The people perishwith cold at one extremity, and are suffocated with heat at the other.'The population has been estimated from forty down to eight millions; andthe latter is probably about correct. Roads are utterly neglected, andthe people live in mean houses, generally of earth or mud, and thewealthy are not much better housed than the poorer class. The trade isof little importance. There are silk manufactures in nearly everyprovince. Cotton and woollen fabrics, carpets, shawls, and felt goodsare largely produced; and the trade is carried on between the chieftowns of Persia with the interior of Asia by caravans. They exchangethese goods for cloth, printed calico, tea, coffee, and fancy goods.Teheran in the north is the capital and the most important place;Ispahan is in the centre, Shiraz in the south, and Bushire is theprincipal seaport on the gulf.
"The government is an absolute monarchy of the most pronounced kind,though somewhat influenced by the priests, the dread of privatevengeance, and insurrection. Taxation is heavy, and very burdensome tothe subjects. Persia has a standing army of 200,000, but it is said toexist largely on paper. Incidentally you have learned considerable aboutthe history of the country, and I shall not go over it. The presentshah, as he is called, is Nasr ed-din, born in 1831. He ought to be aprogressive monarch, for he has visited England and France severaltimes."
The professor retired, and the conference adjourned till afternoon.