In Abraham's Country.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 4 December 1914, Page 4

In Abraham's Country.

The journey from Beirut to Aleppo, scarcely longer in point of mileage than from London to Manchester, took us nineteen hours. A good-natured Turkish officer shared the compartment, and helped to enliven the way, as well as to keep undesirables from travelling with us. Beyond Hama, on the river Orontes, we could see several of the high water wheels which are used to raise water from the river to the high ground- on either side. These naura, as they are called, are of huge dimensions, some of them nearly 70 feet in diameter. As the wheel passes through the water, small boxes are filled with the fluid, and, when they reach the top .they empty their contents into a trough, from which the water is directed into the necessary channels.' Night and day these wheels turn, and are only to be stopped by diverting the force of the water below into another course. Altogether, it is a curious example of Syrian engineering, .and the creaking of the wheels, together with the blowing of the wind through the spokes, makes queer music, which rings in the ears for long after the train has left this wonderful river behind. According to -Egyptian monuments the town of Aleppo was in., existence in the time of Abraham. In antiquity, therefore, it must almost rival Damascus, and it is all the more strange that it appears to have no connection whatever with Old Testament history. Prom the middle of the tow*n rises the ruin of an immense castle which serves as barracks for the Turkish troops. This castle has only one entrance, spanning the moat surrounding the citadel, and neither visitors nor residents are allowed inside the keep. Beyond the castle and the native bazaars, which are extensive and fairly clean, there is little to claim attention in this Syrian town. Jt was, however, totiched by the hot wind of industrial dispute while we were there, and it was curious to find in the impassive East so mod- . crn and Western a thing- as a strike in progress—a transport strike, too, which delayed our journey. We were taken from Aleppo almost to the bank of the Euphrates by (he railway which the Germans are now building right across Asiatic Turkey as far as Bagdad, the city which sintillates in the "Arabian Xights." Surely there is nothing so romantic in the whole history of railway enterprise as the iron rail which will link up Constantinople and the ruins of Babylon which will touch two of the "four rivers of Eden, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and which will enable one to go from the Tarsus of the apostle to the Parian-A-rum of the patriarch. Already a trestle bridge allows the train to pass over that river upon which the sixth angel of the Apocalypse poured out his vial. The track is laid also for many miles on the eastern side tpwards Mesopotamia, but is not yet^ open for public traffic.