雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界地理52 伊甸園

     OF course, you have heard of the Garden of Eden, haven't you? When-I-was-a-boy I thought that when I was old enough to travel I should like to go and see it for myself. I should like to see whether or not the angels with fiery swords were still there. So I asked my Sunday school teacher where the Garden of Eden was. "It's in the Bible," said she. That didn't help me much. But grown-up people have been looking for the Garden of Eden for a great many years and some say they have found it, or rather that they have found the place where it once was, for it does not look like a garden now, much less like a Paradise.

     If you were in Damascus and asked a man on the street, "How do you get to the Garden of Eden?" he might think you were crazy, or maybe he might say, "I'm a stranger here myself." But if he did know the way, he would point to the east and say, "You cross the desert and keep going straight ahead toward the rising sun. In about a month, if you are going by camel, or in a couple of days, if you are going by automobile, you will come to a muddy river. This river is called the Euphrates. Cross the Euphrates and go on a short distance and you will come to a second muddy river. This second muddy river is called the Tigris. These two rivers flow into each other, and near the place where the two rivers join, there you'll find the Garden of Eden. You can't miss it."


     There is no garden there now and you may wonder how there ever could have been a garden there, for most of it is now mud, and, when there has been no rain for a long time, just baked mud ground, which looks as little like a Garden of Eden as you could possibly imagine. Nevertheless, people think this is where the Garden of Eden once was. They even point out an old apple-tree that once bore some apples and say, "That's the original tree." They think the Great Flood took place between these rivers. They think that Noah lived down there somewhere, that he built his ark down there, and that the Flood came and flooded all this valley between the two rivers, and when the Flood was over, the Ark was left high and dry on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain way up above where the rivers rise. This valley between the two rivers was called Mesopotamia, because "Meso" means "between" and "potamia" means "rivers." But it is now called Iraq, and that is the name you will see on the map.

     On the Tigris River, high up, there used to be a big city called Nineveh, and on the Euphrates, farther down toward where the two rivers meet, there used to be another big city called Babylon. I say "used to be," for although these two cities were the largest cities in the World before Christ was born, they have almost completely disappeared.
     Have you ever built on the beach or in a sand pile a town of houses and streets and then some big bully has come along, tramped on it, stamped on it, and kicked it to pieces? Well, Nineveh and Babylon look as if some giant had come along and stamped all over them and kicked them all to pieces, for about all there is to be seen of them now are piles of dirt. Men have been digging in the piles for many years and they have found buried under the dirt some of the things the people of these cities once had in their homes and shops and schools and palaces, for these cities had some of the finest houses and palaces ever built. The walls and gardens of Babylon were once one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but practically nothing is now left of them.

     Though Nineveh and Babylon are gone-their names are not even on the map-there are to-day two big cities on the 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.