The inhabitants of this region are wild and inhospitable and utterly beyond the control of the Turkish authorities, and navigation of the river between Korna and Suk-esh-Sheiukh is unsafe owing to the attacks of armed pirates.
Willcocks discovered (1909) that from Suk-eshSheiukh the Euphrates had formed a new channel through the marshes.
29 cities of former days, there is a succession of small towns along the course of the river - Ramadiya, Feluja, Mussaib, Hillah, Diwanieh, Samawa, el-Khudr (an ancient daphne or sacred grove, 3 I° 11' 58" N., 76° 6' 9" E., the only one anywhere which preserves to this day its ancient charter of the inviolability of all life within its precincts), Nasrieh and Suk-esh-Sheiukh----by means of which the Turkish government controls the river and levies taxes on a small part of the adjacent territory.
Beyond the Samana Suk lies the pass, known as the Chagru Kotal, across which the Tirah Expedition marched in 1897.
The minaret of Suk el-Ghazl, in the south-eastern part of the city, dates from the 13th century.
