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Though Nineveh and Babylon are gone—their names are not even on the map—there are to-day two big cities onthe Tigris that are very much alive, with people living in them. One of these cities is just across the river from where Nineveh used to be. It is called Mosul. You know what muslin is, don’t you? Well, muslin was first made in Mosul, so this kind of cloth was called “Mosulin,” which became muslin.
Not many years ago people discovered oil in the country round Mosul, enough oil to run all the automobiles in the World. The difficulty was to get the oil to the automobiles. Pipe lines were built from the oil wells to the Mediterranean Sea miles away. The oil is pumped through the pipes and then is loaded on ships. The ships are really floating tanks and so are called tankers. The tankers carry the oil to America and to Europe.
Mosul is a Moslem town. On the great mosque there is a minaret that leans, something like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. People say that Mohammed was once passing this minaret and it bowed to him and was never able to get entirely straight again—it’s still leaning.
Have you ever read the stories of Ali Baba and Sindbad the Sailor? Down the Tigris River below Mosul is another big city called Bagdad. The people you see there on the streets look like the people you see in the pictures in the “Arabian Nights.” Bagdad in summer is one of the hottest places you can imagine. It is sometimes 125°, and you know that 100° is about as hot as we can stand. The streets used to be like narrow alleys, dirty and smelly. But after World War I, England ruled over Iraq and Bagdad and the English made great changes. They built a wide street right through the city and called it New Street. They put in electric lights and ice factories which Bagdad had never had before. Then they had the people vote for a king, and Iraq has been a kingdom ever since. It is still under the protection of England, however, and a few Englishmen stay there to help train the army of Iraq.
