Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/21

cessity for a regular irrigation of the land led the inhabitants to distribute their excessive water supply by canals and specially constructed machines. Herodotus gives the following description: "The land is irrigated not as in Egypt, by the water being brought in over the field, but by hand and by engines; for the whole country of Babylonia, just like Egypt, is cut into canals; and the greatest of these canals is navigable and extends from the Euphrates toward the southeast to another stream—i. e., the Tigris—on which the city of Ninos (Nineveh) is situated." (I., 193.) Concerning this overflow, which watered the neighboring regions, Herodotus seems to have had no accurate information. How extensive was once this network of great and small canals is shown by the fact that at the present time a traveler journeying in Babylonia passes in a single day thirty or forty of them. But the artificial irrigation does not consist simply in numerous canals, but includes also the great basins which serve to regulate the course of the stream during the rainy season—e. g., the basin of Sippara, which will be mentioned later. Wherever the canals were insufficient for watering the land, on account of the elevation, numerous remains show that engines were placed which in flowing water were set in motion by water wheels, and in still water by beasts of burden. These contrivances, as they exist to-day, are described by a recent traveler as follows: "There was a rude ferry here, and here, for the first time, we saw ox water wheels working. These, which are the characteristic water wheels of the Babylonian plain (jird is their native name), consist first of an excavation in the river bank, down which the water skins can be lowered perpendicularly to the