"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎٣‎٤‎١] (٨٦٢/٦٨٤)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS 53 1
of 400 shops near the southern entrance of the Qala. There is a rest house
on the outskirts.
Tanning and felt-making are carried on and the small Jewish section is
mainly occupied with dyeing and weaving. There is much transit trade
with Persia, Kurdistan, and lower Iraq, and with Urmia in Turkey. Some
of the Erbil merchants have wide connexions, possessing their own agents
in Aleppo and Baghdad. There are very few of the poorest classes, and the
townsmen are among the least lawless in Iraq. Supplies of barley, wheat,
rice, vegetables and fruit, sheep and goats are available; also tobacco and
gallnuts.
There is a municipal electric-lighting plant (150 kW.). Water-supply is
by pump from a large karez (capacity 280,000 galls, a day) to a reservoir of
60,000 gallons in the citadel and also from wells (10,000 galls, an hour).
Communications
Land: Erbil is a route centre for its section of the Assyrian plain.
Tarmac road [6] west-north-west to Mosul. Metalled road [9] north-east
to Shaqlawa, Ruwandiz, and the Persian border. Track east-south-east
to Koi Sanjaq. Tarmac road [6] south to Altun Kopru and Kirkuk. Track
south-west to Makhmur and Qala Sharqat.
Air: There are several landing-grounds in the vicinity of the town.
Falluja. 33 0 21' N., 43 0 46' E.; alt. c. 130 feet. Pop. 8,000. Qadha cap,
Dulaim Liwa.
Falluja is a small town lying in the Jazira plain on the left bank of the
Euphrates about 40 miles west of Baghdad. It is the centre of the section
of the Euphrates from which the northern canals diverge towards the
Tigris, between the head of the Saqlawiya and Abu Ghuraib canals, and it
controls the most northerly bridge of the Euphrates in Iraq. The inhabi
tants are Sunni Arabs; the neighbouring tribes are the Albu Isa, Jumaila,
and Albu Muhamda sections of the Dulaim.
At or near Falluja the land route from Syria across the desert or follow
ing the Euphrates has always crossed the river eastwards to reach the
capital on the Tigris. Sumerian Rapiqu was near by, and in Abbasid times
there was a great city to the north-west of Falluja at Anbar, near the mouth
of the then Nahr Isa canal. In the sixteenth century European merchants
left their boats at ‘Feluge’, continuing by land to Baghdad; thus Falluja
became a regular stage on the various caravan and carrier routes to Baghdad
and Basra. The building of the route by Rutba to Transjordan has en
hanced its modern importance, and in 1941 the principal engagement
between the Iraqi and the British forces was for the control of Falluja.
The town lies at the outer edge of a bend of the Euphrates, and consists
of houses of sun-dried brick with a sarai, mosque, khans, and a bazaar of
150 shops. Plentiful supplies of wheat, barley, and sheep are available, and