'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎69r] (142/862)

DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND 89
wards by the Zaghaitun Chai. Separate streams from the low hills
between Tauq and Kirkuk also contribute water to the marsh; but
the rainfall on the southern side of the Kani Domlan is collected by
the Khir Abu Naft, which eventually flows into the Nahr Zaghaitun
(or Zaghaitun Chai). There is a fair amount of cultivation dependent
on rainfall along the 15-mile belt of country south of the Kani
Domlan hills, but farther south a broad tract of country reaching to
the Jabal Hamrin is lacking in water and forms only rough pasture.
At some period in the past this country was watered by canals leaving
the Little Zab about half-way between Altun Kopru and its junction
with the Tigris. These canals, now marked by the Nahr Abbassiya
and the Nahr Safir al Fil, fed the Nahr Zaghaitun, which thus acted
as a perennial canal. There should be no serious difficulty in re
establishing some such scheme to-day in order to bring this land
again under cultivation, but the modern Hawija canal irrigates only
part of the area (fig. 75).
The Little Zah in the Assyrian Plains (figs. 23, 24)
After breaking out of the Kurdish mountains between the Hab-es-
Sultan Dagh and the north-western extension of the Pir-i-Mukurun
Dagh (p. 100) the Little Zab is deflected westwards by outliers of the
Baranand and Bazian ranges. It passes through open undulating
country until on approaching Taktak the hills close in on either bank.
Below Taktak the river begins to widen its flood-bed between
steep banks of earth and conglomerate, and it here flows over a bed
of shingle and sand and encloses scrub-covered islands.
Altun Kopru (photo. 202) occupies a prominent position just above
the point where the river passes through the Kani Domlan hills. It
forms the southern apex of the triangular Erbil plain and owes its
importance to its position where the ancient route between Erbil and
Baghdad crossed the Little Zab.
From its defile (darhand) near the Hab-es-Sultan Dagh to Altun
Kopru, a direct distance of 50 miles, the Little Zab falls from 1,750 to
850 feet above sea-level, an average of 18 feet a mile, but there are
occasional sandstone ledges which form small rapids. In this section
there are a number of small rain-fed tributaries: the Rubar-i-Koi,
which waters the plain of Koi Sanjaq, and the Shalgha, which has an
upper basin among the foothills of the Bana Bawi Dagh, are the only
perennial streams on the right bank; the Shewasur, fed by springs
in the broken country north of Chemchemal, is the only perennial
tributary on the left. Opposite the Shalgha the low grassy spurs of