'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎328r] (658/862)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS
509
commercial port. Much unnecessary equipment was discarded and
storage sheds and warehouses were built, which had not been required
by the Army. The whole transit area was walled in with a steel fence,
thus greatly reducing the size and cost of the police staff required.
The principal advance made between 1918 and 1939 was the dredging
of the Rooka channel through the outer bar of the Shatt al Arab, first
to a depth of 28 feet and later to 30 feet. Hitherto the larger vessels
had been compelled to discharge part of their cargo 50 or 100 miles
out at sea. This work was done and is maintained by specially con
structed suction dredgers. Finally a modern airport and flying-boat
station was built on vacant land belonging to the Port Directorate and
completed in 1936.
In the present war Basra has again become the main port of supply
first for British and Allied forces in the Levantine States, Iraq, and
Persia, and then for supplies to Turkey and above all to Russia. This
again led to an expansion of the facilities at Basra and to the creation
of new wharfage opposite Ashar at Tanuma and at Umm Qasr on the
Khor Zubair. But there is little doubt that after the war facilities
will be again reduced to the 1939 establishment of Basra, which was
fully adequate for the normal trade of the Shatt al Arab.
Description of Town (photos. 192-195).
The twin towns of Ashar and Basra City are connected by a strip
of houses along the right or south-east bank of Ashar creek. Basra
City, roughly an equilateral triangle with sides 1 mile long, its base
on the Ashar creek and its apex to the south, is the oldest quarter and
the main residential area'of the Arab population, though some of
the long-established local firms still keep their offices in it. Though
some streets are macadamized and a few have been widened to enable
two cars to pass, they are generally narrow and unsuitable for motor
traffic. The houses vary from burnt brick buildings round court
yards to mud huts and even reed huts in the poorest parts. Ashar,
a rectangle about 1 mile long on its river frontage and half a mile
broad, is the modern commercial quarter. The main thoroughfares
are broader than in Basra City, and there are many good modern
buildings, mostly on the right bank of Ashar creek, such as the
principal banks, commercial houses, and the G.P.O. and, on the left
bank, the new Sarai. Others, such as the Port Health Office, the
British Club, and the British Consulate, are near the waterfront
below Ashar creek. Four road bridges across the Ashar creek connect