Tigris

Tigris (Heb. Hiddekel; Diklat of the cuneiform inscriptions; Tigrâ in Old Persian, 'swift as an arrow,' whence Gr. Tigris; Arab. Diflech), a large river of Asiatic Turkey, rises south of Lake Goljik, in the mountains of Kurdistan, within a few miles of the eastern bend of the Euphrates (q.v.), flows south-east to Diarbekir, after which it makes a sharp turn and flows due east for 100 miles to Til. Here it receives from the north a considerable affluent, the Bitlis (united with the Bohtan Su), and once more altering its course runs in a south-easterly direction, mainly through desert wastes and unpeopled pastures, until it falls into the Persian Gulf, after a course estimated at 1150 miles. Its chief tributaries, beside the Bitlis, are the Great and Little Zab, and the Dyala, all from the left. At Kurna it joins the Euphrates, 90 miles above the mouth of that river in the Persian Gulf, and henceforth the united rivers bear the name of Shat-el-Arab (see EUPHRATES). In the upper part of its course the Tigris is a very swift stream, and it brings down great quantities of mud. The principal places on its banks are Diarbekir, Mosul, and Bagdad, with the ruins of Nineveh, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon. The river is navigable for small steamers to Bagdad, and for river-boats to near Mosul.—For the Bocca Tigris, see BOCA TIGRE, and CANTON.