Tiie water of the Tigris, in its lower course, is yel- lowish, and is regarded as unwholesome. The stream abounds with fish of many kinds, which are often of a large size (see Tobit vi, 11, and comp. Strabo, xi, 14, 8). Abundant water-fowl float on the waters. The banks are fringed with palm-trees and pomegranates, or clothed with jungle and reeds, the haunt of the wild boar and the lion.
3. The Tigris, in its upper course, anciently ran through Armenia and Assyria. Lower down, from about the point where it enters on the alluvial plain, it sepa- rated lialjy Ionia from Susiana. In the wars between the IJonians and the Parthians we find it constituting for a short time (from A.U. 114 to 117) the boundary- line between these two empires. Otherwise it has scarcely been of any political importance. The great chain of Zagros is the main natural boundary between Western and Central Asia; and beyond this the next defensible line is the Euphrates. Historically it is found that either the central jiower pushes itself west- ward to that river, or the jjower ruling the west ad- vances eastwanl to the mountain barrier.
The Tigris is at present better fitted for purposes of traffic than the Euphrates (Layard, Nineveh and Baby- lon, p. 475) ; but in ancient times it docs not seem to have been much used as a line of trade. The Assyri- ans probably floated down it the timber which they were in the habit of cutting in Amanus and Lebanon to be used for building pur])oses in their capital; but the general line of connnunication between the Jledi- terranean and the Persian (lulf was by the Euphrates. According to the historians of Alexander (Arrian, E.rp. Alex, vii, 7; comp. Strabo, xv, 3, 4), the Persians pur- jiosely obstructed tlie navigation of the Lower Tigris by a series of dams which they threw across from bank to bank between the embouchure and the city of Opis, and such tra<le as there was along its course proceeded b\' land (Strabo, ibid.). It is probable that the dams were in reality made for another purpose, namely, to raise
the level of the waters for the sake of irrigation ; but they would undoubtedly have also the effect ascribed to tliem, unless in the spring flood-time, when they might have been sliot by boats descending the river. Tims there may always have been a certain amount of tralHc down the stream ; but up it trade would scarcely have been practicable at any time farther than Samara or Tekrit, ou account of the natural obstructions and of the great force of the stream. The lower part of the course was opened by Alexander (Arrian, vii, 7) ; and Opis, near the mouth of the Diyaleh, became thence- forth known as a mart (t^iTroptoi'), from which the neighboring districts drew the merchandise of India and Arabia (Strabo, xvi, 1, 9). Seleucia, too, which grew up soon after Alexander, derived, no doubt, a por- tion of its prosperity from the facilities for trade offered by this great stream. — Smith.
4. The most important notices of the Tigris to be found in the classical writers are the following: Strabo, xi, 14, 8, and xvi, 1, 9-13; Arrian, Exped. Alex, vii, 7; Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi, 27. See also Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geog. s. v. Among modern writers may be mentioned hdiX axd, Nineveh and Babylon, \>.A^-b\,A&A- 476 ; Loftus, Ciuddiea and Susiana, p. 3-8 ; Jones, in Transactions of the Geog. Soc. of Bombay, vol. ix : Lynch, in .fourn. of Geog. Soc. vol. ix ; Rawlinson, Herodotus, i, 552, 553. See Euphrates.
Tikkun Sopherim (ni^a'D 'j'p'^r), or Emen- dations of the Scribes, refer to eighteen alterations which the scribes decreed should be introduced into the text, in order to remove anthropomorphisms and other in- delicate expressions. These eighteen emendations, or ■|"'ii"a n "', are as follows, according to the order of the Hebrew Bible :
1. Gen. xviii, 22, where, for the original reading, niiT'l nm^X "^Ssb "T23r "^Din", "and Jehovab.s««.s?uorf before Abrah;un," is now substituted, by the decree of the sciibes -Tikkun Sopherim, 7\^T\-^ "'isb TQIS? 13Ti:) Cm^NI, "and Abraham still stood before Jehovah," because it ap- peared offensive to say that the Deity stood before Abra- ham.
2. Numb, xi, 15, where Moses addresses God, "Kill me, I pray thee . . . that I may not see th[i evil" (TiPSI^), i. e. the punishment wherewith thou visitest Israel, is al- tered to "that I may not see my evil" ("rj'"'3), because it might seem as if evil were ascribed to the Deity.
3. 4. Numb, xii, \2, where the original reading, " Let her not be as one dead who proceeded from the womb of our motlier (IS^^X), and half of otcr flesh OSTiT 3) be con- sumed," is changed to " Let her not be as one dead-born, tohirh lohen it proceeds from the womb odts mother 0T2S<) has h;\]l o{ its flesh (1~w3) consumed."
5. 1 Sam. iii, 13, where the original, " for his sons cursed God" (D^nPX)— the Sept. has it still ee.ii'— is altered to " f(M' his sous cursed themselves" (DHS), because it was too offensive to sny that Eli's sons cursed God without being reprimanded by their father.
6. 2 Sara, xvi, 12, where "tortZ God see with his eye" {^i'^'SZ) is made to read '^icill God look at my affliction" (''^^S'2). The Seventy probably read i^il'S, for they translate in rtj