8　A Rich Land Where There Was No Money

You have read in fairy tales of a land where cakes and candy and sugarplums grow on trees,where everything you want to eat or to play with can be had just by picking it. Well,long,long ago people used to think there had been really such a country,and where do you suppose they said it was?Somewhere near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers—those rivers with the strange names I asked you to learn—and they called this spot the Garden of Eden.We do not know exactly where it was,for there is no such place now quite as wonderful as the Garden of Eden was supposed to be.

Egypt was a land of one river,the Nile. The land of the Two Rivers had several names.

Let us suppose we are flying over the country in an airplane and looking down at the land between these two rivers. It is called Mesopotamia,which is two Greek words simply meaning between the rivers.

See the land over there by the upper Tigris. It is called Assyria.

See the land near where the rivers join each other. That is called Babylonia.

See the land near where they empty. That is called Chaldea.

And see over there is Mount Ararat,where it is supposed Noah’s Ark rested after the flood.