he
arches or into a cup or stall, the winner scoring the highest with a
certain number of balls.

BAGDAD, or BAGHDAD, a vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, situated between Persia
and the Syrian desert, and including the greater part of ancient Babylonia.
The original vilayet extended from Mardin on the N. to the Persian Gulf on
the S., and from the river Khabor on the W. to the Persian frontier on the
E. From the middle of the 17th century, when this region was annexed by the
Turks, until about the middle of the 19th century, the vilayet of Bagdad
was the largest province of the Turkish empire, constituting at times an
almost independent principality. Since then, however, it has lost much of
its importance and all of its independence. The first reduction in size
occurred in 1857, when some of the western portion of the vilayet was added
to the newly created sanjak of Zor. In 1878 the Mosul vilayet was created
out of its northern, and in 1884 the Basra vilayet out of its southern
sanjaks. At the present time it extends from a point just below Kut
el-Amara to a point somewhat above Tekrit on the Tigris, and from a point
somewhat below Samawa to a point a little above Anah on the Euphrates. It
is still, territorially, the largest province of the empire, and includes
some of the most fertile lands in the Euphrates-Tigris valleys; but while
possessing great possibilities for fertility, by far the larger portion of
the vilayet is to-day a desert, owing to the neglect of the irrigation
canals on which the fertility of the valley depends. From the latitude of
Bagdad northward the region between the two rivers is an arid, waterless,
limestone steppe, inhabited only by roving Arabs. From the latitude of
Bagdad southward the country is entirely alluvial soil, deposited by the
rivers Tigris and Euphrates, possessing great possibilities of fertility,
but absolutely flat and subject to inundations at the time of flood of the
two rivers. At that season much of the country, including the immediate
surroundings of Bagdad, is under water. During the rest of the year a large
part of the country is a parched and barren desert, and much of the
remainder swamps and lagoons. Wherever there is any pretence at irrigation,
along the banks of the two great rivers and by the few canals which are
still in existence, the yield is enormous, and the shores of the Tigris and
Euphrates in the neighbourhood of Bagdad and Hilla seem to be one great
palm garden. Su