BRITISH ARMY IN BABYLON.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 181, 9 June 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

BRITISH ARMY IN BABYLON.

A CLEAR ECHO OF 10; >"J YEAH 3 AGO. THE BEGINNING OF SIN. Under delusions of econohi c necessity, with phrases en twin ■_ 1 about peace, justice, and liberty that are as old as human thought, civilisation, now tragically divided, returns to the scene of its navity waving a sword, lusting for mortal combat. The place is -Mes opotamia. Tlier j wondering mankind was once supposed to be cradled. There man learned the double nature of his torment which u to fear the unknown with a horrible fear while being irresistibly attracted toward it. The strange fact is that a war for trade ways on the oceans leads men back to whero the} were and fought 10,000 years ago Across Mesopotamia tlu AngloFlench forces, tending northward, seek to strike hands with their Russian ally, coming south. Between them lie the Germans and the Turks. The geography is strange. no had ever heard much of Kut-el-Ainara. Korna, Erzeruin, and Ctcriiphon, or any other place but Jiagdad? 'lhat is a name faintly fragrant of the past. At Bagdad tho splendour of the East flared up again a few iiurdred years ago, while trade yet went in caravans, then faded like a sunset. The city serves one purpose still. You can find it on the map. Do this, fo'low then the Tigris down to where it foims a junction with Euphrates, and stop.

BABEL AND CONFUSION. Here was Babylon ! Here lies buried the Holy City of Western A~ia, with 2-50 brazen gates. It was the capital of the great Babylonian Empire with a history that began 7000 years beiore Christ. Babyion was the wonder of this world, and nothing now is left of : t that could wither and vanish away. But here were a groat many things in accessible to tlie usury of the elements and the passion of man to destroy his own works.

The impudieity of the Babylonians who dared to scale heaven is immortal. Their tower of Babel is real, wl ether it ever existed or not, and there is no more popular explanation of the confusion of tongues to this da v. The feast of Belshazzar, at which the hand appeared on ".lie wall and wiott the doom of Babylon, will not fade so long as tradition endures. Babylon was great. Babylonia was gi eater. One was an empire of many nations and the other was only a city. Long before the Greeks knew l.ow to run a Commonwealth and tolerate each other in ugly woollen clothes, thougn dirty—a thousand years or two before that the people in Babylonia knew how to be clean, wore tine linen, and carried parasols. They knew a great many other things worth knowing today. Marriage was treated with reverence, and yet the woman was no chattel. She had tiie right to trade and t > own property in her own name, and f she was divorced by her husband she got her dowry back. There were l.braries in Babylonia, with the difficulty only that the "books" were of stone. There were emp'oyers' liability laws to protect the slave. One injured in service had to be supported for i.ie rest of his life. There was a rel gion which attributed an inner spirit to every object of Nature. now scornfully called fetishism, but nevertheless the true beginning of the foiling which the modern artist seeks to express in pictures and sculpture.

Before Babylon, before Bal),ylonia, before any of tin-, wore tilings w>> only know and cannot prove. Tlio first chaptor-; of tlio boo* aro lo«t. Tlicv are tilings, nevertheless, which transcend all proved realit'e«. (In the plain of Babylon was tlio Garden of Eden. There was tie Tree of Life, from which Eve plucked the very apple of knowledge, as all of us know and cannot wholly regret.

THE BEGINNING OF SIN". So here, where your finger is at the juncture of the Tigris and the Euphrates, a locality now prominent in the newspapers, on account of the current military events, here was the beginning of sin, then the fall of man, then the most dramatic occurrence in all human historv, called the Expulsion, and, at last, a- monument to frailty, the wickedest, holiest, loveliest city of all time, which was Babylon, the Home of Asia.

Mankind's gu-at concerns on tho plains of Mesopotamia arc his principal concerns to-day. War was generally for wrong reason; and peace an ideal. In the south of Babylonia and in the north of Assyria, unable both at the same time to occupy the best place in the Min, owing to a law of space that has not changed since: and unable, besides. to make amicable arrangements or keep them, being human, as people are still. They took turns by force and succumbed at last to alien invaders, not a'together because the invaders were stronger, but because they themselves became weak.

The less cultured, the barbarians, were then as now in a chronic way of descending upen their neighbours. Walls were of no avail. Every essential problem of the modern world was paralleled there. Tho weak were oppressed because they were weak and the strong broke their treat es who could. And at last civilisation, as if in horror or despair, Hod from the plains of Mesopotamia, the most fertile area on carti;, leaving beh.iul it the magnificent ruins. For economic reasons some years ago we sent an engineer there to make the wa-te fort le by irrigation works, and he found the remains of an irrigation system which, if it had not lvoon abandoned to decay, would have kept | the country r.i a state of wonderful fertility. And now the Germans, having carried their war against England to tho plains of Mesopotamia, poreeivft large economic j ri.--.bilities there. Why did c:vil\ation nee?

ALL TH Al' V AS LI FT OF EM.

A farm boy went to the city to see,: his fortune. Fir six months ;< it a worn was heard from him. Then one afternoon his father received the following liot-e : "Dear Eatiier.- M m ( > under the old bridge to-mei row nfter dark. Bring with you a blanket or a suit rf clothes. 1 have a hat."

Would-be Siad-er (to recruiting set* gennt) : " But sir. I have bad eyesight and tan't s.v any distance." "Don't worry about that, niv man, we will [iut you in the very front treti' h where you will have a good view."