IN THE GAVDEN OF EDEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1921, Page 4

IN THE GAVDEN OF EDEN.

(By Edgar B. Watkins). .Mesopotamia was ever the land ol trouble, although we read of it as being the land of milk and honey. When you anive in Hast a you quickly become disillusioned from (lie milk and honey theory. Boarding a small rivei boat out morning I started my trip to the liarden of Talon. The journey up tin Shatl-cl-Arab is very interesting indeed, but the sights you see are i alhoi .different from those—say on tin Thames at Richmond or Henley. The banks are thickly covered wit! date palms, and between the months ol M areli and September the dates may be seen banging in great clusters at the top of the trees. Volt occasionally -ee Hunting down the liver cat eases ol till I locks, mules, sheep, and so Ini lb and ulnae a carcase chances to Hunt ti I lie hank, numbers of jackals and vultures are to tie seen. Another inter esling sight was the hiiiein of an old Arab sheikh whom rumour says, had 1110 wives.

We aiiived at Kuriia (which is recognised by many authorities and by ilie Arabs as the Carden of Kden). Me stopped here and went ashore, and the tiisi thing that was pointed out to us was an old tree which had evidently been dead lor uinuy hundreds of years. This tree had been replanted by the Arabs, who had taken the trouble to support, it by means of sticks, as they believe it. to be “the tree of tile knowledge of good and evil,” as mentioned in the second chapter of Heliosis. The village of Kuriia stands on the banks of the Tigris, and it is near here that we have the Shatt-el-Aral> dividing into the Tigris and Euphrates. The village is not very large, but is thickly populated; the natives live in sundried, mud-brick blits, in the building of which they are very clever, and are ibietlv employed in date-growing. Another fruit which is found is the fig, which grows very abundantly, and if as plentiful in the days of Adam and Eve 1 am sure they had little difficulty iu solving the dress problem. Of course you would not expert to find the (Harden of Eden as we are accustomed to read about it in Jliblical history, and I assure you it is not so, ; s iii reality it may be said to be very banco indeed and with very little resemblance of a garden about it. On both banks of the river at this spot you have date palms to a depth of a lew hundred yards, beyond which it is just sandy desert far as the eye can

The climate is very lint. During the summer months temperatures of I.'IO and 1 10 in tlio shade being quite common ; and this high temperature continues until September, at the end of which it begins to get much cooler, and at Christmas, as in England, it is no uncommon sight to see snow. When on a visit to either the (Harden of Eden. Babylon, Nineveh, pr npy of t]io

historical places in Mesopotamia it is very necessary to have a largo imagination, as it is most difficult to bring before the mind that the barren desert now before you was in the days oi Christ such a beautiful spot.