'Reconnaissances in Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, North-West Persia, and Luristan from April to October 1888. By Lt F R Maunsell, Intelligence Branch. In Two Volumes. Volume I: narrative report, description of larger towns and routes leading from them. Simla: Intelligence Branch, Quarter Master General's Dept, 1890' [‎16r] (36/312)

17
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Occasional caravans also come in from Shustar and Dizful, by the route
along the foot of the Pusht-i-Kuh ; but the Beni Lam Arabs make it insecure
(,see Bedrai Route II).
A merchant in Mosul informed me that he did a large trade in sheep and
cattle that started from the districts round Dizful and Shustar in the winter;
and were driven along the left bank of the Tigris, grazing as they went, and
finally sent through Mosul to Aleppo to Sakanderun.
Immediately above Kut is a difficult piece of navigation in the low season
full of sandbanks. Steamers stopping at Kut go alongside a steep bank, and
there is no pier, which in the flood season makes landing difficult.
The northern entrance of the El-Hai canal is just opposite Kut.
The whole distance between Kut and Baghdad in the low season is the
most difficult to navigate on account of the shoals.
The river at Kut is 400 yards wide, and from here to Baghdad the banks
are higher, and inundated land disappears.
The Turks have of late years been making some efforts to settle and utilize
this fertile country. Defensive posts have been established to protect the settled
Arabs from Bedouin raiders. An increase in the population along the Tigris
is also due to migration from Hillah and the districts on the Euphrates
adjoining it, where the gradual wearing away of an embankment has allowed
the river to leave its proper channel and destroy large tracts of country which
used to he irrigated by it.
These settlements on the Tigris are Maghesil, Jumisa, Azaziah, and
Ctesiphon, standing in the order named above Knt, each having a small
mud fort with a few zaptiyahs to protect them. They are all in a fairly thriv
ing condition.
Between them are enormous tracts of fertile country on either bank,
treeless and uninhabited, except by a few wandering nomads.
Baghdndia .—At 124 miles above Kut-T-Amara we entered a wide loop
of the river in which are the ruins of a mud fort called Baghdadia.
It stands on some low sandy mounds, rising 50 to 100 feet, which fill up
the loop. These would in such a flat country form an excellent defensive
position, easily strengthened by earthworks thrown up in the sand. The
mounds are visible for a considerable distance, and the steamer takes nearly an
hour to go round, keeping the fort in sight all the way.
J umisa.
On the right bank, near the north end of the Baghdadia loop, is Jumisa,
one of the new Government settlements. The surrounding district has recently
been bought upas the private property of the Sultan.
This is a place of 800 houses of sun-dried bricks and mud, generally built inside
enclosures of high mud walls, used as kraals to shelter and protect cattle.
There are a few young date trees and gardens behind the village and a
small mud fort at the north end of the place 100 yards square, with loop-holed
walls 20 feet high, and circular flanking towers at the corners. One hundred
men are usually quartered here.
The principal faces of the fort look out on the desert, and the north face
looks up the reach of the river. It is not intended to bar the passage of the
river, but rather as a protection against the Arabs.
Most of the villages we passed on the banks have mud enclosures, with
loopholed walls or towers, into which the inhabitants can retire or place their
cattle in case of Arab raids.
VOL. i.
D