Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/60

4O A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/KA AND ASSYRIA. first colonists, of whatever race, appeared in the country, they must have set about regulating the water courses ; they must have taken measures to profit by the floods to form reserves, and to utilize the natural fall of the land, slight though it was, for the distribution of the fertilizing liquid. The first groups of agriculturists were estab- lished in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tigris and Euphrates, where nothing more was required for the irrigation of the fields than a few channels cut through the banks 'of the stream, but when the time arrived for the settlement of the regions at some distance from both rivers, more elaborate measures had to be taken ; a systematic plan had to be devised and carried out by concerted action. That the kings of Chaldaea were quite equal to the task thus laid upon them is proved by the inscriptions of IIAMMOURABI, one of the successors of Ismi-Dagan, which have been translated and commented upon by M. Joachim Menant. 1 The canal to which this king boasts of having given his name, the Nahar-Hammourabi, was called in later days the royal canal, Nahar-Malcha. Herodotus saw and admired it, its good condition was an object of care to the king himself, and we know that it was considerably repaired by Nebuchadnezzar. It may be compared to a main artery ; smaller vessels flowed from it right and left, throwing off in their turn still smaller branches, and ending in those capillaries which carried refreshment to the roots of each thirsty palm. Even in our day the traveller in the province of Bagdad may follow one of these ancient beds for an hour or two without turning to the right or the left, and their banks, though greatly broken in many places, still rise above the surrounding soil and afford a welcome causeway for the voyager across the marshy plains. 2 All these apparent accidents of the ground are vestiges left by the great hydraulic works of that Chaldee Empire which began to loom through the shadows of the past some twenty years ago, and has gradually been taking form ever since. When civilization 1 J. MENANT, Inscriptions de Hammourabi, Roi de Babylone ; 1863, Paris. These inscriptions are the oldest documents in phonetic character that have come down to us. See OPPERT, Expedition scientifique, vol. i. p. 267. 2 KER PORTER, Travels in Georgia, Persia, etc.. 4to., vol. it. p. 390. LA YARD, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 535. "Alexander, after he had transferred the seat of his empire to the east, so fully understood the importance of these great works that he ordered them to be cleansed and repaired and superintended the work in person, steering his boat with his own hands through the channels."