ault.

In his attempt to describe Babylon, Strabo says[215]: "In the absence of
timber, properly speaking, beams and columns of palm-wood were used in the
buildings of Babylonia. These pillars were covered with twisted ropes of
rushes, over which several coats of paint were laid. The doors were coated
with asphalte. Both doors and houses were very high. We may add that the
houses were vaulted, in consequence of the absence of wood.... There were,
of course, no tile roofs in countries where it never rains,[216] such as
Babylonia, Susiana and Sittacenia."

Strabo himself never visited Mesopotamia. This we know from the passage in
his introduction, in which he tells us exactly how far his voyages
extended, from north to south, and from east to west.[217] When he had to
describe Asia from the Taurus to India, he could only do so with the help
of passages borrowed from various authors, and in the course of his work it
has sometimes happened that he has brought into juxtaposition pieces of
information that contradict each other.[218] Something of the kind has
happened in the lines we have quoted, in which he first speaks of pillars
and timber roofs, and ends by declaring that all the Chaldaean houses were
vaulted, although vaults and timber could not exist together. The truth is,
in all probability, that one system of covering prevailed here and another
there, and that the seeming contradiction in the text is due to hasty
editing. We may conclude from it that travellers had reported the existence
of both systems, and that each was to be explained by local conditions and
the varying supply of materials.

The two systems still exist side by side over all Western Asia. From Syria
to Kurdistan and the Persian Gulf the hemispherical cupola upon a square
substructure continually occurs. The timber roof is hardly less frequent;
when the apartment in which it is used is of any considerable size it is
carried upon two or three rows of wooden columns. These columns rest upon
cubes of stone, and a tablet of the same material is often interposed
between them and the beams they support. A sort of rustic order is thus
constituted of which the shaft alone is of wood. We reproduce a sketch by
Sir H. Layard in which this arrangement is shown. It is taken from a house
inhabited by Yezidis,[219] in the district of Upper Mesopotamia called
_Sinjar_ (Fig. 58).

[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Interior of a Yezidi house; from Layard.]

We are incline