Modernism in Asiatic Turkey
FROM the mounds of Babylon, you may look off for miles in every direction—the view that led Nebuchadnezzar to boast of his great city. To the west is Ezekiel’s tomb, to the south the Tower of Babel, to the east the great arch of Ctesiphon and the tomb of Salman Pak, private barber to the Prophet Mahomet. In Nebuchadnezzar’s time, the plain about was a waving mass of verdure, grain and fruit; canals of water traversed it everywhere, and here and there cities dotted the landscape. No wonder he was proud! It is to reclaim this historic land, to make the [traditional] Garden of Eden over again, that the irrigation works and the famous German-Bagdad Railway are being built. Now a wave of modernism sweeps the long, changeless East. As it reached out to transform China, so the long arm of progress is reaching out to Turkish Arabia. From the Mediterranean, the inevitable railway to link Europe with India is stretching forth. Already trains are running on its western lengths, and the German engineers have surveyed it into Bagdad. The historic, untamed Euphrates is to be bridged at last, and Europe’s dream of a railway to the Persian Gulf is about to be realized. Even an aeroplane race from Constantinople to Bombay, crossing the Garden of Eden en route, is now being discussed in the press of Europe. Soon excursion trains may be run to the traditional Garden of Eden, souvenir postals of the Tower and the famous stone lion may be sold in curio shops at New Babylon, and another of the world’s once inaccessible regions will echo to the whistle of the engine.