Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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The Bagdad Railway has now reached the town of Bulgurlu, beyond Eregli, in the foothills of the Anti-Taurus Mountains, and about fifty miles from Adana; but, as I have said, it is the most expensive piece of construction on the road and the German managers hesitate to undertake it. After they reach Adana there is another stretch of a hundred miles or more which is also very heavy and expensive work, requiring many cuts, embankments, rockwork, and tunnels. The managers have put in an application for a change of route along the coast by way of Alexandretta and Antioch and from there approach the valley of the Euphrates by way of Aleppo. This route would be a great advantage as a measure of economy, but as the Turkish military authorities have pointed out, it exposes the railway to any foreign fleet that may enter the Gulf of Iskanderoon, on which Alexandretta is located. If the track lay back in the mountains, it would be more difficult to interfere with traffic in time of war.

The Bagdad Railway is expected to follow the valley of the Euphrates or that of the Tigris, the two great historic rivers which encircle that mysterious country known as Mesopotamia, where, according to the Scriptures, was the cradle of mankind, and the first inhabited section of the earth’s surface. Mesopotamia was formerly dotted with prosperous cities and supported a large population, but it is now practically uninhabited. The cities are in ruins, the population has perished, and the entire area has become a desert because of the destruction of irrigation systems which were built before the birth of Abraham. The government has already undertaken a scheme of reclamation at a cost of $10,000,000. Sir William Willcocks, who built the Assouan dam on the Nile, made the survey and furnished the estimates. He declares that there is no difficulty in the reclamation of the entire area between the Euphrates and the Tigris that money cannot remove.