THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
When the promenade had been transformed into Conference Hall, the
arrangement for the maps had not been forgotten, and the frame had been
set up against the after end of the pilot-house. It covered the two
windows; but they were not needed when the ship was at sea. When the
professor made his bow, Mr. Gaskette exposed to the view of the audience
a 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 busy
upon others.
"Perhaps I ought to apologize for this map, Captain Ringgold," said Mr.
Gaskette, when he had unrolled the huge sheet; "for the boundaries of
these ancient countries are so indefinite in the great atlas that I have
not been able to lay down all of them."
"You have done exceedingly well, Mr. Gaskette, and I think the professor
can ask for nothing better than you have given him," replied the
commander.
"Certainly not," added the learned gentleman. "I can give the boundaries
no more definitely than they are presented on this beautiful map. I am
extremely delighted to have the assistance which it will afford me. The
artist might have guessed at some of the division lines, as others have
done. 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 my
description of these ancient countries; for these subjects in detail
would be very tiresome to the company under present circumstances, and I
propose to bring out only a few salient points in regard to them," said
the professor.
"The only thing I feared, Professor, was that you would go into them too
diffusely, forgetting that your audience are not savants, or even
college students, such as you have been in the habit of addressing. I am
very glad to find that you have just the right idea in regard to the
situation," replied Captain Ringgold.
"It is fortunate that we agree," continued the instructor, as he took
the pointer and turned to the map. "This map lays before you the region
lying to the north-east of Arabia, on the port hand of the ship, as the
commander would say; and with your imagination you can look over these
mountains and sands and see it. You observe that Syria is on the west of
the northern part of it, with Armenia just where it is now, on the north
of it, though there was more of it then than now; for in ancient times
it reached to the Caspian Sea. An old lady in the country at whose house
I used to spend my vacation used to call things that could not be
changed as fixed as the laws of the 'Medes and Parsicans.' She meant
the Medes and Persians; and Media, now a part of Persia, was the eastern
boundary of the region mapped out On the south-east is Susiana, now a
large portion of Persia.
"This beautiful map tempts me to be more diffuse than I should have been
without it; but it gives you a bit of ancient geography which will do
you no harm. There are two great rivers which extend through this
territory, the Euphrates and the Tigris, though both of them unite and
flow into the Persian Gulf. Of the former of them the commander has
spoken to you this morning. Scholars have not been able to locate
Paradise, or the Garden of Eden, with anything like precision; but it is
generally supposed to have been between these two great streams. Some
think it was not a place at all, but only a location given to a moral
idea; others place it in the mountains of Armenia or Northern
Mesopotamia."
"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 even
the countries themselves are very much mixed. Assyria was the eastern
portion of the northern part," continued the professor, indicating the
location with his wand. "In the British Museum and elsewhere you have
seen 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 of
the Assyrian kings, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and others. It
would not be profitable to go over them. The Babylonian monarchy was
before Assyria was founded. The government was a despotism with nothing
to soften it, and the religion was the worship of many gods. Its history
dates back from 913 to 659 years before the birth of Christ, though
there are tablets which carry it back to 2330 A.D. The empire began to
decay in the reign of Sardanapalus, when the governor of Babylon and the
king of Media conspired against it; and Nineveh was captured and
destroyed a little more than 600 years before Christ."
The commander announced another recess at this time, though the party
appeared to be very much interested in the story of these ancient
countries, closely connected with Bible history. Half an hour was spent
in 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 professor
resumed 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 the
shores 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 the
Chaldees.' It was and is a very rich and fertile country, extensively
irrigated in modern times. Susiana is now a part of Persia, and the rest
of the territory represented on the map is included in Turkey in Asia.
"The people were of the Semitic race; in other words, they were
descended from Shem, the son of Noah; but Babylonia in the past and
present is a land of many races and languages, and the readers of the
inscriptions have been bothered by the variety of tongues. The British
and the New York Museum have figures and tablets revealing the history
of Babylonia. But it takes an archæologist to translate their
discoveries. The relations of the monuments indicate that the antiquity
of Babylonia reaches back about as far as that of Egypt. A stone in the
British Museum brought from this locality has the name of Sargon I.,
king of Akkad, is reliably vouched for as coming down from the year 3800
B.C.
"The ancient tablets inform us that Narbonassar ascended his throne in
747 (all these dates are B.C.). He reigned fourteen years, which were
taken up in wars with Assyria, in which the latter got the best of it in
the end. Then, in 625, invasions from the east afforded the Babylonians
the opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Assyria, and Nabopolassar
became king. In 604 he was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, who was
accounted one of the greatest monarchs that ever ruled the empire.
"In the forty-three years of his reign he recovered the lost provinces
of the kingdom, and made his country the queen of the nations of his
time. He rebuilt the city of Babylon, and restored all the temples and
public edifices. It is said that not a single mound has been opened in
this territory in which were not found bricks, cylinders, or tablets on
which his name was inscribed. He captured Jerusalem, and a year later
destroyed it, sending most of its people to Chaldea. He died in 561, and
was succeeded by his son.
"This son was murdered; and there was confusion again till 556, when the
throne was usurped by Nabonidus, the son of a soothsayer, who became a
wise and active prince, and his reign ranks next in importance to that
of Nebuchadnezzar. His name is found in almost all the temples
unearthed. After he had ruled seventeen years, all Babylonia revolted
against him because he neglected his religious duties, as well as those
of the court, leaving all the business to be done by his son Belshazzar.
"At this point the historians get mixed again. Some say that Belshazzar
was the last king of Babylonia. In Daniel v. 30, we read: 'In that night
was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median
took the kingdom.' Xenophon informs us that Babylon was taken in the
night while the inhabitants were engaged in feasting and revelry, and
that the king was killed. To this extent sacred and profane history
agree. The country became a Persian province. Then it was conquered by
Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323. It was also a part of
the Roman Empire at two different times.
"In 650 the successors of Mohammed overthrew the Persian monarchy, and
the province was the seat of the caliphs till A.D. 1258. On the Tigris
in this region is the city of Bagdad, the capital of a province of the
same name. Here lived and reigned the Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, or
Haroun '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 his
domain. 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 be
one of the great wonders of the world," suggested Mrs. Belgrave.
"They are hardly historical; but I will give you what I recall in
relation to them. One writer says they were built by Queen Semiramis,
the wife of Ninus, an alleged founder of Nineveh. She was a beautiful
girl, 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. Then
he himself was smitten by her beauty, and wanted her himself; the
husband was good-natured enough to commit suicide, and she became queen.
Ninus soon died in a very accommodating manner, and Semiramis reigned
alone 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 have
covered about four acres, built on terraces, supported by arches of
brick or stone, and were seventy-five feet high. They were watered from
a reservoir at the top, to which water was forced from the Euphrates.
Fountains and banquet halls were placed on the various terraces, as well
as gardens of flowers. Trees, groves, and avenues gave a variety to the
scene, and the view of the vast city was magnificent."
The professor retired; and another recess followed at the word of the
commander, who thought his school was doing admirably, and he was
anxious not to overdo the matter.
"I am afraid it will take all day for me to dispose of the subjects
assigned to me," said the professor, as he took his place again.
"I hope it will," replied Mr. Woolridge. "Very much to my surprise, I
have become deeply interested in the subjects you present, Professor."
"It is better than the theatre," added Miss Blanche in a low tone to
Louis.
"I shall give you only a few fragments in regard to Persia, and leave
Syria to be considered when the Guardian-Mother makes her trip to
Palestine. Persia is called Iran by the natives, and it is the largest
and most powerful native kingdom of Western Asia. It includes the
provinces of Susiana, Persis, and Media on the map, and extends from the
Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, with Afghanistan and Beloochistan on
the east, and Asia Minor on the west.
"A considerable portion of the country is mountainous, and between the
Elburz 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 rain
or artificial irrigation. In California, Colorado, and other States, our
people have transformed just such regions into fertile districts. But in
spite 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 of
the country are varied and valuable. It has no navigable rivers, though
many of large size and volume, some of which are beginning to be used
for purposes of irrigation. There are many salt lakes.
"The climate is varied; as Cyrus said to Xenophon, 'The people perish
with cold at one extremity, and are suffocated with heat at the other.'
The population has been estimated from forty down to eight millions; and
the latter is probably about correct. Roads are utterly neglected, and
the people live in mean houses, generally of earth or mud, and the
wealthy are not much better housed than the poorer class. The trade is
of little importance. There are silk manufactures in nearly every
province. Cotton and woollen fabrics, carpets, shawls, and felt goods
are largely produced; and the trade is carried on between the chief
towns of Persia with the interior of Asia by caravans. They exchange
these 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 the
principal seaport on the gulf.
"The government is an absolute monarchy of the most pronounced kind,
though somewhat influenced by the priests, the dread of private
vengeance, and insurrection. Taxation is heavy, and very burdensome to
the subjects. Persia has a standing army of 200,000, but it is said to
exist largely on paper. Incidentally you have learned considerable about
the history of the country, and I shall not go over it. The present
shah, as he is called, is Nâsr ed-dîn, born in 1831. He ought to be a
progressive monarch, for he has visited England and France several
times."
The professor retired, and the conference adjourned till afternoon.