United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"This beautiful map tempts me to be more diffuse than I should have been without it; but it gives you a bit of ancient geography which will do you no harm. There are two great rivers which extend through this territory, the Euphrates and the Tigris, though both of them unite and flow into the Persian Gulf. Of the former of them the commander has spoken to you this morning.
Nineveh and Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates, Thebes and Memphis on the banks of the Nile, had been reduced to dust, sinking from old age and weariness into a deadly numbness beyond possibility of awakening.
These water-butts are the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf, and they are always big enough to hold all the water, however hard it may rain on the stony roof which rises between Caucasia, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. The gutters are, of course, the rivers, the greatest of which is the Euphrates. Now the road is very bad.
"For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries; and the sword devours, and it is satiate and made drunk with their blood, for the Lord God of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates."
The Arabs call it the Sawâd or Black Land, and it is a striking change from the bare ledges of Arabia and Iran which enclose its flanks, and from the Northern steppe-land which it suddenly replaces at Samarra, if you are descending the Tigris, and on the Euphrates at Hit. The steppe cannot compare with the Sawâd in fertility, but the Sawâd does not so readily yield up its wealth.
But granted that the general locality and the relations of the river Euphrates and Tigris satisfy the requirements of the text by such a location as this: how about the other two and the countries which they compass?
We have already seen that the Mayas of India were not only architects, but also astronomers; and the symbolic figure of a being half man and half fish seems to clearly indicate that those who brought civilization to the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris came in boats. Hoa-Ana, or Oannes, according to the Maya would mean, he who has his residence or house on the water.
The wealth which he acquired by these sales was lawful gain, for the prices were raised, not by him, but by the Egyptians themselves. One part of his possessions, consisting of gold and silver and precious stones, Joseph buried in four different places, in the desert near the Red Sea, on the banks of the Euphrates, and in two spots in the desert in the vicinity of Persia and Media.
He had ascertained, through the medium of agents, that the Shah of Persia would, for a sum, of money paid in advance consent to the establishment of military magazines on certain points of his territory. Bonaparte frequently told me that if, after the subjugation of Egypt, he could have left 15,000 men in that country, and have had 30,000 disposable troops, he would have marched on the Euphrates.
The citadel, which lay towards the north, and overhung the Euphrates, was especially strong; and the garrison was brave, numerous, and full of confidence. The walls, however, composed in part of brick laid in bitumen, were not of much strength; and the Roman soldiers found little difficulty in shattering with the ram one of the corner towers, and so making an entrance into the place.
Word Of The Day