'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎57v] (119/862)

7© GEOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND
Some trouble has occurred in the past at Mandali concerning water
rights and distribution across the Persian border, which is only 5
miles distant.
Southwards is a broad belt of waste ground liable to inundation
after winter rain in the hills. This region is known generally as the
Haur ash Shubaicha, but it has several local names where lower
ground is flooded every winter. The marsh is never deep, and its
extent varies with the wind, but after very heavy rain it is occasionally
continuous with the Suwaiqiya marsh north of Kut. The Shubaicha
marshes dry up in summer, leaving a sun-baked and sun-cracked
salty surface which is passable almost anywhere by cars. One traveller
who crossed this trackless country from Balad Ruz to Aziziya by Ford
car in July 1917 records shade temperatures of 126° F.
There is little to add to what has already been said concerning the
riverain and Nahrwan districts (pp. 48-9). The number of settle
ments along the river bank has increased during the last twenty years,
but the cultivated fringe is narrow and discontinuous because of
fallow land, and irrigation channels, supplied by lifts and mechanical
pumps, are rarely more than 5 miles long. A few spill into small
unimportant marshes, but the road from Kut to Baghdad cuts across
each loop of the river without difficulty. Beyond this riverain fringe
is the once fertile region watered by the Nahrwan canal, which
widens north-westwards to some 30 miles (p. 433), and it is across
this section that the new railway from Kut to Baquba has been
alined.
Immediately east of the Diyala is a district veiy different from that
already described. This is well watered by five canals which leave the
left bank of the Diyala near the point where it breaks through the Jabal
Hamrin: the Ruz, the Haruniya, the Shahraban, the Mahrut, and the
Khurasan, the two last having the same head-works on the Diyala but
ividing almost at once. The Ruz canal is the easternmost and irri-
gates a broad belt of land, some 56,000 acres in extent about 20-25
miles distant from the Diyala; the large village of Balad Ruz is the
chief centre of this belt. The Haruniya and Shahraban are shorter,
but the Mahrut and Khurasan are both important, irrigating areas of
66,000 and 71,000 acres respectively. Considerable development of
all this country has taken place since the Irrigation Department built
the Diyala weir and canal regulators for the better control of Divala
water (p. 439).
\ilI} h %hfr Y iS not s ^ own on fi g- 19 as the exact alinement is not yet pub-
hshed. The approximate line is shown on the Communications map.