"It had taken them about two hours to rob us, and it was nine o’clock that night before we reached another khan. The rest of our journey was made in peace."

Flocks. — Here and there through the hundreds of miles of country that borders the Tigris and Euphrates and that stretches far away to the west and to the east, you can find flocks of sheep and goats.

In the desert, where there is grass in very few places, the Arabs wander from place to place, driving their flocks to find new pastures. Little Arab girls not more than eight or ten years old sometimes tend the sheep and the goats, and wander several miles from camp with them.

In some places where there is rain enough to make grass grow more, the flocks are larger. These flocks do not have to wander far to find enough grass and water. The shepherds grow very fond of their sheep. Each sheep comes to know the voice of its own shepherd, and it also knows the other sheep that belong to its flock. In the spring the sheep are sheared and the wool is sold.

The sheep and goats of these many flocks are useful not only for their wool and hair. Their skins also are used in many ways. Some men make their living by tanning these skins. The tanners sometimes cure goat skins by filling them with oak bark and water, and laying them on the ground in the sun. Water is carried in many parts of this land in goat-skin bags. Goat skins that are filled with air are used in making keleks or rafts, as you have learned. For shoes and many other things the leather made from the skins of goats or sheep is used. The chief~meat of the people who live in the lands near the Tigris and the Euphrates is mutton. It would be very hard indeed for these people to do without their flocks.

Persian rugs. — The weavers of the lands near the Tigris and the Euphrates have long been famous. Some of them weave black cloth for tents. Muslin, a kind of cotton cloth, was given its name because, centuries ago, it was made very well in the town of Mosul, on the Upper Tigris. Other weavers in these lands have made beautiful silks. But the weavers who are best known to-day are those who make Persian rugs.

These rugs are woven in the land to the east of the Tigris. Much of the weaving is done by the women. From the time they are little girls they are taught to make beautiful patterns, first in the sand or on paper, and then in rugs. It takes one woman many years to weave a single large rug. The wool for the rugs is dyed by the village dyers. You can tell from far off the house where a dyer lives by the skeins of bright yarn that are hung on ropes above his housetop to dry.

Bricks. — Perhaps you have learned for yourself by this time that there is very little wood in this country. Most of the large trees are date-palm trees, and they do not make good lumber because the trunks are not firm and solid enough.

There is, however, plenty of clay from which bricks can be made. Blocks of clay spread out on the ground are hardened into bricks by the heat of the sun. Some of these sun-dried bricks are very large, and are used in building houses.

There is another way in which men get bricks for building. Part of the city of Bagdad is in ruins. In many other places near the Tigris and Euphrates, the ruins of ancient cities may be seen. The most famous of these ruined towns you can see in the distance in Figure 24. It looks just like a hill, but it is the crumbled city of Babylon. In the days of long ago, men in this land used brick as they do now for their buildings. So to-day men can dig in these ruins and find in them bricks by the boatful. They also find in these ruins the stories of what men did here when these cities were new. These stories were written on bricks or on tablets of clay. Some men make their living by digging among the ruins for these precious tablets, and for other records of the people who lived here thousands of years ago.

The list of pictures. — Compare the title you gave to each picture in Figures 14—23 with the title given it in the list on page 144. Your titles need not be worded just as those in the list are worded, but yours should have the same meanings as those on page 144. How many did you have right?

Another search. — These pictures in Figures 14—23 do not show all the kinds of work people do in this land. You saw on your trip up the river other work, such as the making of koofahs. In the story about the bazaar, you read of a coppersmith. You might run races to see who can find from all the pictures and stories to this point the greatest number of kinds of work done by people in this country.

Homes. — The peuple who do these different kinds of work live, as you would expect, in different kinds of homes. In Figures 25, 26, and 27 are shown three of these kinds. One shows the homes of some wealthy Bagdad merchants. Another shows the home of desert Arabs who move from place to place to find pastures for their flocks. The other shows homes in a little town not far from the Tigris. Tell, if you can, which homes belong to the merchants, which one to the wandering Arabs, and which ones to the villagers. Which of these homes is most like your own?

Does the next paragraph describe the kind of home shown in Figure 25, the kind shown in Figure 26, or the kind shown in Figure 27? Which of these kinds of homes do you think the second paragraph describes?

1. Many of the houses in Bagdad are two stories high, and have few windows. Most of the windows are narrow, and are in the second story. Through the shutters or bars of the windows, the women, many of whom seldom go outside the houses, may peep at the people passing by. The only opening from the street to the first floor is guarded by a heavy bolted door. The rooms are built around three sides of an inner court. The floors are of tile, stone, or cement. There is little furniture besides a few rugs and chairs. From the court a doorway may lead to a garden where orange, peach, and apricot trees are growing under the shade of date palms.

2. "One side was left open. We sat on a large mat made of palm leaves, for there were no chairs. A curtain div:ded the men’s part from that of the women. There was no stove, but near-by a hole had been dug in the ground. Some stones were piled around it and the little cooking they did was done here. For supper we had dates and milk. There were no tables, knives, nor forks. We slept on mats on the ground."

Something for you to think about. — Although these homes are very different, there is one way in which all of them are alike. In making them, very little wood was used. You found on page 15 one reason for this. You have also seen or read about several things, as in Figure 8 and in one of the paragraphs on page 6, which show you that not much rain falls here. This helps to explain why there is very little wood. It also helps to explain why many houses in this land have flat or nearly flat roofs. Do you see how? If you do not yet see how, keep thinking about these things, and before you finish the Tigris and Euphrates story, you will find out.

An "F and R Puzzle." —" F" in this puzzle stands for "food" and "R" stands for "rain."

On a piece of paper make a drawing like this:

On page 4, you have read about several kinds of food which are eaten by the people who live near the Tigris and Euphrates. The letter M in your drawing is the first letter in the name of one of these foods, and there are as many dots beneath the blank space after M as there are remaining letters in the name. Complete this name by printing the right letters above these dots in your drawing. The name of another of these foods begins with D, and that of a third with B. Complete these names in your drawing in the same way. In the square after each word in your drawing, write the number of the paragraph in the following group, which gives one reason why the people eat this kind of food.

1. The palms along the Tigris and Euphrates are date-palm trees. These trees can live where most trees would die. They can grow where there is very little rain, and a great deal of sunshiie. But their roots need water, and so people in this country lift water from the river and from wells for their date gardens. The natives say that date palms must stand with their feet in water and their heads in hot sunshine.

2. Wheat does not need so much rain as most other kinds of grain. Ir some places near the Tigris and Euphrates thr re is rain enough for wheat to grow. Most of the fain falls in the winter, but the winters are not very cold and so some wheat is grown during that s4ason. In some drier places the wheat fields are watered as the date gardens are.

3. In many places where there is not enough rain for wheat, grass can grow, and sheep and goats can live upon it.

Do you see now why this was a" Food and Rain Puzzle "?

A "C Puzzle." — This is called a "C Puzzle" because the following four paragraphs are about the same thing, and this thing begins with "C." Find out what "C" stands for.

1. "As we journeyed with the camel caravan, it grew hotter and hotter, but we did not take off our coats. Instead, we took pains to keep them carefully fastened and to keep our heads well covered. The camel drivers took off scarfs from about their waists, and partly wrapped their faces with them, so that the moisture from their breath would help to keep the dry, hot air from cracking their lips and the skin of their faces."

2. Loose robes are cooler than tight-fitting garments when it is hot.

3. "Before we could reach the house in which we lived, the storm was upon us. We were in a street in Bagdad. The air was filled with very fine sand, and it was painful to breathe. The people who wore loose robes threw corners of their robes up over their faces. We covered ours with our handkerchiefs as well as we could. Happily for us, the sand storm did not last long."

4. Nights in the desert are almost always cool, and sometimes very cold. One needs protection from the cold by night, and from the heat of the sun by day.

Look again at the people in Figure 2 and Figure 13. Do you now know why they are dressed as they are?

A "Sun and Shadow Puzzle." —On page 11. you read in the story of the caravan march where you would see the sun at noon in January if you were near Bagdad. If you have forgotten, read it again to find out.

1. Suppose you look at the sun at noon to-day. Is it as high in the southern sky as it seemed to these men in the caravan going to Bagdad?

2. On which side of your house is its shadow at noon? Why? 3. On which side of a house in Bagdad is its shadow at noon? Why?

A "Suggest Game." — The words Tigris and Euphrates should now make you think of many things, such as those named in this list:

Houses of brick or clay
Houses with flat roofs
Palm trees
People wearing loose robes
Flocks of sheep and goats
Dry, barren lands
Bagdad

Stand in two rows as for a spelling match. To start the game, the leader on one side says "Tigris and Euphrates." Then the leader on the opposite side names something that these words suggest to him, such as" Houses with flat roofs." The second one on the first side names something different that the words Tigris and Euphrates make him think of, such as "Bagdad." The second one on the second side has the next turn, and so on. If a child names something that is wrong, or cannot name anything, he must take his seat. The game is to see which side has the greater number of people standing when you have named all that Tigris and Euphrates suggest to you.

An airplane view of Bagdad. — The picture of Bagdad in Figure 28 was taken from an airplane which was flying only a few hundred feet above the city. Can you find in it the bridge of boats? Some minarets? What else that you have read about Bagdad can you see in this view?

A view of Bagdad from higher in the air. — The picture in Figure 29 was taken from an airplane almost half a mile above the city. It shows you more of Bagdad and more of the Tigris River than you see in Figure 28, but from this greater height, the buildings are little more than dots. The airman pointed his camera almost north to take this picture. So the land shown near the top of the picture is farther north than the land shown near the bottom of the picture. Can you find the bridge of boats? Can you find the steamships near it? They are a little downstream from the bridge. If you move your finger along the picture of the river from the left to the right, you are moving it down-stream.

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