"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎٣‎٤‎٢] (٨٦٢/٦٨٦)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS
533
Communications
Land: A good tarred motor-road [8c] goes north past Khurmal to join
the Sulaimaniya-Penjwin road at Serao; but it may be unreliable in winter.
An alternative track leads north to Penjwin. Mountain tracks lead east to
Nausud in Persia and west to Shaikh Maidan on the Diyala.
Air: Landing-ground north-west of the town.
Hilla. 32 0 29' N., 44 0 26' E.; alt. c. 90 feet. Pop. 20,000. Liwa cap.
Rainfall station (Rlys).
Hilla is on the eastern or Hilla branch of the Euphrates, 60 miles by road
south of Baghdad. The town is on both sides of the river, and is surrounded
by extensive date-gardens. Most of the inhabitants are Shia Arabs, the
remainder Sunni Arabs and a certain number of Persian and Indian Shias.
The town is a river port and the largest grain centre of the ‘Middle
Euphrates’ area. The ruins of Babylon are 4 miles north of Hilla.
The original town in Abbasid times, called A 1 Jamian, the two mosques ,
was on the left bank of what was then becoming the main stream of the
Euphrates. A 1 Hilla or ‘the settlement’ was built on the right bank by an
Arab shaikh in a.d. 1102 to control a great bridge of boats which became
the main crossing of the Euphrates. Then as now it was a large and pros
perous provincial town and its inhabitants were devout Shias. This rule
was relatively undisturbed by the tribal warfare of the Ottoman period or
by the advent of the Zubaid tribe to the district, who eventually began to
settle down as fellahin during the nineteenth century (photo. 130). The
gradual diversion of the Euphrates waters from the Hilla to the Hindiya
channel was a catastrophic blow to local cultivation, which was only saved
by the construction of the Hindiya barrage in 1913 (p. 35). During the
Great War Hilla was sacked by the Turks, in 1916, as punishment for
a rebellion, and the district was disturbed during the Arab revolt of 1920,
though the British never lost control of the town.
General Description
The major part of the town is on the right bank and was formerly sur
rounded by a wall 16 feet high, now much destroyed. The quarter on the
left bank, called the Jazira, was open. Many of the older buildings were
made with bricks taken from the ruins of Babylon. A road 20 feet broad
traverses both quarters which are connected by two bridges, a timber
trestle bridge for heavy traffic and a strong pontoon bridge for light traffic.
The principal public buildings, mostly around a central square on the right
bank, are the sarai, the police barracks, and civil jail. There are several
government and private schools, a public library, a civil hospital of 50 beds,
eye and jail hospitals of 12 beds. Hilla is a great cereal market; the grain
History