'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎94] (103/568)

94
INHABITANTS
To turn westwards again, there are a few small towns in the
country between Diarbekr and the eastern Taurus, e. g. Farqln
(about 800 houses) on the road from Diarbekr to Bitlis, and Lijjeh
about 1,000 houses) on the road from Diarbekr to Erzerum. South
east of Diarbekr, Midiat (3,000) is the local centre of the Tur Abdin.
In the northern Jezlreh Beled Sinjar (2,500) and Tel A'far (6,000)
lie in cultivable lands south and east of the Sinjar hills, and Beled
Sinjar is the post from which the Yezidis of these hills are watched.
The Baghdad Kailway has yet to make its towns in the north-western
JezTreh.
Lastly there are the towns in the middle Euphrates valley below
Birijik : Deir ez-Zor (12,000) and Anah (5,000). They live partly
by their position on the valley road from Aleppo to Baghdad and on
the waterway of the Euphrates (the Anah men are the best boatmen
on this part of the river). They are also centres of contact with the
Bedawis. Deir ez-Zor holds a very important position. Not only is
it near the mouth of the Khabur, but the Syrian Desert to west of it
and the Jezlreh to east, being less arid here than farther south, are
traversed by caravan routes, from Deir to Damascus on the one
hand, and from Deir to Mosul on the other.
Movement of Population
Increase and
As there are no statistics of births, deaths, migrations, &c.,
nothing definite can be said about any change in the total number
of the population. On the whole it seems to have been growing
slowly in the years preceding the present war, but the increase in*
some districts had been at least partly compensated by a decrease
(generally due to disorder) in others. (For effect of the war on
population of upper Mesopotamia and central Kurdistan see p. 88).
There was a tendency among the nomadic population to settle
down and take to cultivation. The Turkish Government tried to
encourage this tendency, but also in some degree checked it by
failing to create confidence or to give adequate protection against
disorder.
The inhabitants of the country in the years before the war had
lively, though somewhat vague, expectations of benefits to be derived
from the Baghdad Eailway, and the completion of the line would
probably lead rather rapidly to a considerable shifting in the dis
tribution of the population.
On the relation of the labour-supply in Mesopotamia to the
prospects of agriculture see p. 171.