Assyrian Empire - Illustrated Edition

Chapter II.
Climate and Productions

“Assyria, celebritate et magnitudine, et multiformi feracitate ditissima.”—AMM. MARC. xxiii

In describing the climate and productions of Assyria, it will be necessary to divide it into regions, since the country is so large, and the physical geography so varied, that a single description would necessarily be both incomplete and untrue. Eastern Assyria has a climate of its own, the result of its position at the foot of Zagros. In Western Assyria we may distinguish three climates, that of the upper or mountainous country extending from Bir to Til and Jezireh, that of the middle region on either side of the Sinjar range, and that of the lower region immediately bordering on Babylonia. The climatic differences depend in part on latitude; but probably in a greater degree on differences of elevation, distance or vicinity of mountains, and the like.

Eastern Assyria, from its vicinity to the high and snow-clad range of Zagros, has a climate at once cooler and moister than Assyria west of the Tigris. The summer heats are tempered by breezes from the adjacent mountains, and, though trying to the constitution of an European, are far less oppressive than the torrid blasts which prevail on the other side of the river. A good deal of rain falls in the winter, and even in the spring; while, after the rains are past, there is frequently an abundant dew, which supports vegetation and helps to give coolness to the air. The winters are moderately severe.

In the most southern part of Assyria, from lat. 34° to 35° 30’, the climate scarcely differs from that of Babylonia, which has been already described. The same burning summers, and the same chilly but not really cold winters, prevail in both districts; and the time and character of the rainy season is alike in each. The summers are perhaps a little less hot, and the winters a little colder than in the more southern and alluvial region; but the difference is inconsiderable, and has never been accurately measured.

In the central part of Western Assyria, on either side of the Sinjar range, the climate is decidedly cooler than in the region adjoining Babylonia. In summer, though the heat is great, especially from noon to sunset, yet the nights are rarely oppressive, and the mornings enjoyable. The spring-time in this region is absolutely delicious; the autumn is pleasant; and the winter, though cold and accompanied by a good deal of rain and snow, is rarely prolonged and never intensely rigorous. Storms of thunder and lightning are frequent, especially in spring, and they are often of extraordinary violence: hail-stones fall of the size of pigeon’s eggs; the lightning is incessant; and the wind rages with fury. The force of the tempest is, however, soon exhausted; in a few hours’ time it has passed away, and the sky is once more cloudless: a delightful calm and freshness pervade the air, producing mingled sensations of pleasure and repose.

The mountain tract, which terminates Western Assyria to the north, has a climate very much more rigorous than the central region. The elevation of this district is considerable, and the near vicinity of the great mountain country of Armenia, with its eternal snows and winters during half the year, tends greatly to lower the temperature, which in the winter descends to eight or ten degrees below zero. Much snow then falls, which usually lies for some weeks; the spring is wet and stormy, but the summer and the autumn are fine; and in the western portion of the region about Harran and Orfah, the summer heat is great. The climate is here an “extreme” one, to use on expression of Humboldt’s—the range of the thermometer being even greater than it is in Chaldaea, reaching nearly (or perhaps occasionally exceeding) 120 degrees.

Such is the present climate of Assyria, west and east of the Tigris. There is no reason to believe that it was very different in ancient times. If irrigation was then more common and cultivation more widely extended, the temperature would no doubt have been somewhat lower and the air more moist. But neither on physical nor on historical grounds Can it be argued that the difference thus produced was; more than slight. The chief causes of the remarkable heat of Mesopotamnia—so much exceeding that of many countries under the same parallels of latitude—are its near vicinity to the Arabian and Syrian deserts, and its want of trees, those great refrigerators. While the first of these causes would be wholly untouched by cultivation, the second would be affected in but a small degree. The only tree which is known to have been anciently cultivated in Mesopotamia is the date-palm; and as this ceases to bear fruit about lat. 35°, its greater cultivation could have prevailed only in a very small portion of the country, and so would have affected the general climate but little. Historically, too, we find, among the earliest notices which have any climatic bearing, indications that the temperature and the consequent condition of the country were anciently very nearly what they now are. Xenophon speaks of the barrenness of the tract between the Khabour and Babylonia, and the entire absence of forage, in as strong terms as could be used at the present day. Arrian, following his excellent authorities, notes that Alexander, after crossing the Euphrates, kept close to the hills, “because the heat there was not so scorching as it was lower down,” and because he could then procure green food for his horses. The animals too which Xenophon found in the country are either such as now inhabit it, or where not such, they are the denizens of hotter rather than colder climates and countries.

The fertility of Assyria is a favorite theme with the ancient writers. Owing to the indefiniteness of their geographical terminology, it is however uncertain, in many cases, whether the praise which they bestow upon Assyria is really intended for the country here called by that name, or whether it does not rather apply to the alluvial tract, already described, which is more properly termed Chaldaea or Babylonia. Naturally Babylonia is very much more fertile than the greater part of Assyria, which being elevated above the courses of the rivers, and possessing a saline and gypsiferous soil, tends, in the absence of a sufficient water supply, to become a bare and arid desert. Trees are scanty in both regions except along the river courses; but in Assyria, even grass fails after the first burst of spring; and the plains, which for a few weeks have been carpeted with the tenderest verdure and thickly strewn with the brightest and loveliest flowers, become, as the summer advances, yellow, parched, and almost herbless. Few things are more remarkable than the striking difference between the appearance of the same tract in Assyria at different seasons of the year. What at one time is a garden, glowing with brilliant hues and heavy with luxuriant pasture, on which the most numerous flocks can scarcely make any sensible impression, at another is an absolute waste, frightful and oppressive from its sterilityr.

If we seek the cause of this curious contrast, we shall find it in the productive qualities of the soil, wherever there is sufficient moisture to allow of their displaying themselves, combined with the fact, already noticed, that the actual supply of water is deficient. Speaking generally, we may say with truth, as was said by Herodotus more than two thousand years ago—that “but little rain falls in Assyria,” and, if water is to be supplied in adequate quantity to the thirsty soil, it must be derived from the rivers. In most parts of Assyria there are occasional rains during the winter, and, in ordinary years, frequent showers in early spring. The dependence of the present inhabitants both for pasture and for grain is on these. There is scarcely any irrigation; and though the soil is so productive that wherever the land is cultivated, good crops are commonly obtained by means of the spring rains, while elsewhere nature at once spontaneously robes herself in verdure of the richest kind, yet no sooner does summer arrive than barrenness is spread over the scene; the crops ripen and are gathered in; “the grass withereth, the flower fadeth;” the delicate herbage of the plains shrinks back and disappears; all around turns to a uniform dull straw-color; nothing continues to live but what is coarse, dry, and sapless; and so the land, which was lately an Eden, becomes a desert.

Far different would be the aspect of the region were a due use made of that abundant water supply—actually most lavish in the summer time, owing to the melting of the snows which nature has provided in the two great Mesopotamian rivers and their tributaries. So rapid is the fall of the two main streams in their upper course, that by channels derived from them, with the help perhaps of dams thrown across them at certain intervals, the water might be led to almost any part of the intervening country, and a supply kept up during the whole year. Or, even without works of this magnitude, by hydraulic machines of a very simple construction, the life-giving fluid might be raised from the great streams and their affluents in sufficient quantity to maintain a broad belt on either side of the river-courses in perpetual verdure. Anciently, we know that recourse was had to both of these systems. In the tract between the Tigris and the Upper Zab, which is the only part of Assyria that has been minutely examined, are distinct remains of at least one Assyrian canal, wherein much ingenuity and hydraulic skill is exhibited, the work being carried through the more elevated ground by tunnelling, and the canal led for eight miles contrary to the natural course of every stream in the district....