ME
DUIN
WITHIUM
DATIN
PASAR
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ROIZGADZU
The Euphrates and the Tigris, with a
description of ruins of Babylon and Nineveh
Euphrates river

















THE EUPHRATES AND THE TIGRIS.











«r«tt Pbers 6i the SHarlb.
THE EUPHRATES
AND
THE TIGRIS.
A NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE RUINS OF
BABYLON AND NINEVEH.
LONDON: THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
EDINBURGH AND NEW YORK.
1879.



I


Contents.
PART I.
THE EUPHRATES: AND THE RUINS OF BABYLON:—
I. MIGHTY BABYLON, ... ... ... ... ... 9
II. THE COURSE OF THE EUPHRATES, ... ... .. 72
PART I I.
THE TIGRIS:—
I. INTRODUCTORY, ... ... ... ... ... 110
II. BAGDAD, ... ... ... ... ... ... 124
III. NINEVEH AND ITS RUINS, ... ... ... ... 145
PART II!.
MR. GEORGE SMITH'S DISCOVERIES, ... ... ... ... 186
v





10
SITE OF BABYLON.
Its capital was that mighty Babylon which occu-
pied a place so conspicuous and so memorable in
the history of the ancient world; the name of
which is, to this day, a synonym for colossal pride
and power, and a text on which to hang the old, old
lesson of the instability of human things, the " vanitas
vanitatum."
Babylon was situated on the Euphrates, which,
indeed, divided it into two parts; while it was con-
nected with the Tigris by canals that extended across
the great Babylonian plain. Though at one time
the most famous of the world's famous cities, its
ruin was so absolute, so complete, that modern re-
search has experienced no little difficulty in deter-
mining its exact site.
To what remote period shall we trace its annals?
Well, it is not without good reason that some
authorities suppose it to have occupied the situation,
or, at least, to have stood in the immediate vicinity,
of that Babel which the Book of Genesis describes
as the beginning of Nimrud's kingdom; as the scene
of man's impious attempt to raise a tower which
should reach to the very heavens, and of his con-
sequent punishment by the dispersion of tongues.
From this last incident its name is generally derived;





J


ANCIENT HISTORY.
13
but a more probable etymology refers it to "the
gate" or "court" of the god Bel. Berosus, the
Babylonian chronicler, preserves a tradition of the
Biblical Babel. A lofty tower, he says, was erected
on the plain where Babylon afterwards spread its
palaces and gardens, but the winds assisted the
gods in destroying it. Its ruins, he adds, still exist
at Babylon; and that the city was called Babylon
(from the Hebrew Babel, or "confusion"), because
the gods there introduced a diversity of tongues
among men, in order to deprive them in the future
of the power of combination.
No other reference to Babylon occurs in the Bible
until we come down to the reign of Hoshea, about
730 B.c., when its armies invaded Samaria, and
carried away the people captive. Previous to this
epoch, it would seem to have been of little import-
ance; certainly inferior to the great Assyrian capital,
Ninus; and certainly dependent upon the Assyrian
Empire. Berosus and other ancient writers record
various circumstances in connection with it, and
perpetuate the names of some of its kings. But
they are all so vague and uncertain, that we need
not trouble the reader with them, or enter into any
discussions as to their authenticity. Mardoch-Em-


14
CHALDEAN KINGS.
padus, one of these shadowy potentates, is generally
identified with the Merodach-Baladan of the Bible,
who despatched ambassadors to congratulate Heze-
kiah on his recovery from sickness. Afterwards we
read of Manasseh, king of Judah, as carried prisoner
to Babylon by the king of Assyria. Next come
the names of Saosduchinus and Chyniladanus, who
appear to have reigned partly at Ninus (or Nineveh),
and partly at Babylon. Throughout this period
the Assyrian power was gradually declining, while
the Chaldeans were growing in wealth, prosperity,
and energy. About 625 B.C. Nabopolassar allied
himself with the Medes in the capture of Nineveh,
and his share of the victory seems to have been
the independent sovereignty of Babylon, where he
founded a dynasty destined to enjoy a brief but
magnificent career.
Nabopolassar reigned for one and twenty years,
and effected much towards the increase and consoli-
dation of his kingdom, pushing his frontiers further
and further westward, and beginning that embellish-
ment of his capital which was completed by his son
Nebuchadnezzar. The latter during the lifetime of
his father, was engaged in checking the advance of
Necho, king of Egypt, whom he completely defeated


REIGN OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
15
at Carchemish on the Euphrates. Afterwards he
overran Palestine, marched forward to Jerusalem,
received the homage of Jehoiakim, and carried
the victorious arms of Babylon to the borders of
Egypt. Thence he was recalled to the capital by
the death of his father in 604 B.C.
He immediately addressed himself, with all the
surprising vigour of his character, and with what
Mr. Grote calls "his unbounded command of naked
human strength," to the construction of those walls
and palaces, quays and temples, which provoked the
wonder of Herodotus, and called forth from Nebu-
chadnezzar himself the proud vaunt,—" Is not this
great Babylon, that I have built for the house of
the kingdom by the might of my power, and for
the honour of my majesty?"
Of all the seats of empire either of the ancient or
the modern world, Nebuchadnezzar's daring genius
made Babylon the greatest. Something of that
greatness was due to the advantages of its natural
position. Its founders, as Dean Stanley remarks, had
taken advantage of the " huge spur of tertiary rock"
which projects from the Syrian desert into the
alluvial basin of Mesopotamia, and upon it, as upon
a dry and solid platform, had built their city; which


10
HIS IMPERIAL CITY.
southward was defended by the lake-like river or
estuary extending in that remote period from the
Persian Gulf. "On this vantage-ground it stood,
exactly crossing the line of traffic between the Medi-
terranean coasts and the Iranian mountains; just
also on that point where the Euphrates, sinking into
a deeper bed, changes from a vast expanse into a
manageable river, not wider than the Thames of our
own metropolis; where, also, out of the deep rich
alluvial clay it was easy to dig the bricks which
from its earliest date supplied the material for its
immense buildings, cemented by the bitumen which
from that same early date came floating down the
river from the springs in its upper course." But
if it owed much to its geographical situation, it
owed more to the magnificent conceptions of
Nebuchadnezzar. The imagination must have been
singularly lofty and daring which designed the
giant works of imperial Babylon! It is true that
he partly rebuilt the edifices of his predecessors;
but all that was most wonderful and stately,—the
Temple of Bel, the massive ramparts, the Hanging
Gardens, the extensive quays, the broad canals,—
these were planned and executed by Nebuchadnezzar
himself.
(008)


A WALLED PROVINCE. 17
"Great Babylon!" . '* Mighty Babylon!" Great
and mighty, indeed; for though it never equalled the
size and populousness of London, yet no ancient or
modern city can be compared with it in the extent
of its walled and enclosed area, which was not less
than forty, some writers say sixty, miles in circum-
ference. In truth, it was a province or a country
enclosed within a city. Its houses were so inter-
mingled with gardens and parks, and shadowy woods,
that its appearance was rather that of a richly
cultivated and thickly inhabited countryside than
of a city; and yet it preserved a city's order and
regularity. The streets, like those of modern Wash-
ington, were laid out in rectangles, and were
uniformly straight, as well as uniformly wide. The
houses, unlike those of most ancient cities, were
three or four stories high. But the grandeur of
Babylon consisted mainly in the gigantic dimensions
of its public buildings, surpassing even those of
Thebes, Memphis, or Abusimbel. Though now
reduced to ruins, their colossal piles, says Ainsworth,
domineering over the monotonous plain, produce an
effect of grandeur and magnificence which cannot be
imagined in any other situation.
"Great Babylon!" "Mighty Babylon!" Great
(608) 2


18 THE BRIDGE OVER THE EUPHRATES.
and mighty, indeed, with its towering walls,—
according to Herodotus, not less than three hundred
feet high,—protecting it from any sudden enemy,
as the Celestial Empire was protected by the Great
Wall of China, or Roman Britain by the Wall of
Severus. Along their summit ran a vast terrace,
broad enough to admit of the turning of chariots
with four horses,—fifty cubits broad, says Herodotus.
At their foot 3'awned a wide deep trench or moat .
and through a hundred brazen gates they gave egress
and ingress to the waves of life incessantly pouring
out of and into the glorious city. Across the Eu-
phrates was thrown a noble bridge, with a castle or
palace at each end, commanding an extensive view
over the enclosed area, and forming the keys of their
several positions. The inner walls of the western
castle were embellished with numerous life-like
representations of animals; and its towers with
pictures of hunting scenes, among which, at a later
date, a Greek traveller saw one of Semiramis slaying
a leopard, and of Ninus, her husband, attacking a
lion with a lance.
"Great Babylon!" "Mighty Babylon!" What
stir and activity and life pulsed in those broad
streets, which all abutted on the river; and that


THE RIVER-COMMERCE.
19
river, how was it thronged with vessels of all sizes,
loaded with the products of far-off climes! In
Nebuchadnezzar's monumental inscription he is
represented as saying: "Of the great waters, like
the waters of the ocean, I made use abundantly.
Their depth was like the depths of the vast sea."
The Babylonians were at that time pre-eminently a
commercial people; their city, a city of merchant
princes. From the bitumen pits of Hit the river
brought down the cement with which the builders
raised their enormous piles; gems and rare wines
were imported from Phoenicia; tin, perhaps, from
remote Britain; huge blocks of basalt from Armenia
and Kurdistan; frankincense and spices and costly
woods from Arabia and India. When at a later
epoch the name of Babylon was transferred to the
West to indicate the greatness and splendour of its
Imperial City, the recollection of the traffic of the
Euphrates, says Dean Stanley, had lived on with so
fresh a memory that it was immediately associated
with its Italian substitute, Rome. To the inland
capital on the banks of the narrow Tiber it was
wholly inapplicable; but the fact that the imagery
had thus survived, and was thus made use of, shows
how profound an impression had been made on the


20
THE PALACE OF THE KINGS.
minds of the Hebrew exiles by the opulence of the
Chaldean metropolis:—" The merchandise of gold,
and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and
fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all
wood of incense, and all manner of vessels of ivory,
and all manner of vessels of most precious wood,
and of brass, and of iron, and marble, and cinnamon,
and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and
wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts,
and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and
souls of men; the shipmasters, and all the company
in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea,
and the craftsmen, and the merchants who were the
great men of the earth."
Among the edifices which adorned this rich, this
powerful, and busy city, two were pre-eminent in
grandeur—the Palace of its Kings, and the Temple
of Bel.
The Palace was larger than many cities; for with
its gardens, groves, and lakes, it measured seven
miles in circumference. The walls were covered
with spirited paintings; in the interior was brought
together all that the ancient world could furnish of
the things that minister to luxury and ease. The
Hanging Gardens, devised by Nebuchadnezzar for



HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON.


24
A PANORAMIC LANDSCAPE.
spoils which Babylonian conquest had swept from
Egypt, Tyre, Damascus, or Nineveh. And when,
from the silver shrine at the summit of this build-
ing, the whole mass of mingled verdure and habita-
tion for miles and miles was overlooked, what was
wanting in grace or proportion must have been
compensated by the extraordinary richness of colour.
Some faint conception of this may be given by the
view of Moscow from the Kremlin, over the blue,
green, and gilded domes and towers springing from
the gardens which fill up the vacant intervals of
that most Oriental of European capitals. But
neither that view nor any other can give a notion
of the vastness of the variegated landscape of
Babylon as seen from any of its elevated points."
The materials used in the buildings of Babylon
were simply bricks and bituminous cement; but
these, by variety of tints, were made to produce a
vivid and even brilliant .effect. The different stages
or stories of the Temple were each of a different
colour,—black, orange, crimson, gold, deep yellow,
blue, and silver. The houses were painted in all
the tints of the rainbow; and this wealth of artificial
colouring at once contrasted and harmonized with
the emerald verdure of the palms that reared their


GREAT WORKS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 25
feathery crests in every garden, with the flashing
silver of the canals that intersected the streets, and
with the glow and gorgeousness of the waving crops
that covered far and wide the surrounding levels.
"Great Babylon!" "Mighty Babylon!" Such
was it in the days of its pride and strength, when
Nebuchadnezzar reigned as king. That to him was
due its magnificence we know from the constant oc-
currence of his name, and of no other, on the burned
bricks now accumulated along the banks of the
Euphrates in waves of ruin. To him, too, must be
ascribed the foundation or rebuilding of most of the
cities of Upper Babylonia. Further, it was he who
ordered the construction of hydraulic works on a
scale which astonishes even the modern engineer;
which were possible only through the cheapness of
human labour in a land where every man's life was
held, as it were, dependent on the king's breath.
We may mention the canals that carried the waters
of the Euphrates over the plain; the embankments
and break-waters erected along both the Euphrates
and the Tigris, and the shores of the Persian Gulf;
the great canal which extended from Hit to the sea;
and the vast reservoir for purposes of irrigation near
Sippara.


26
A UEIGN OF WAK.
The execution of undertakings so colossal becomes
all the more wonderful when we remember that the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar was a reign of war, and
not of peace. < He was scarcely seated on his throne
before the Jews again began to trouble him, and
the Phoenicians almost simultaneously threw off their
allegiance (b.c. 598-597). - The young monarch
concluded an alliance with Cyaxares the Mede, and
then marched against Tyre, which, after a siege of
thirteen years, was captured and destroyed. He
despatched another army against Jerusalem; but the
siege being carried on too slowly for his energetic
character, he suddenly appeared before the sacred
city in person, beat down its defences, spoiled it of
its treasures, carried off its king, Jehoiachin, and
ten thousand prisoners to Babylon, and placed
Zedekiah on the throne. Eight years afterwards
(b.c. 586), Zedekiah revolted, encouraged by the
promise of help from Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar once
more marched against "the rebellious city," resolved
on visiting it with a signal punishment. The
prophet Jeremiah advised submission; but the king
and princes put their hope in Egypt, and when the
king of Babylon drew off his army to meet Pharaoh-
Hophra, they rejoiced and made merry as if the


INVASION OF EGYPT.
27
victory were already won. But the Egyptian king
shrank from encountering the Chaldean army;
Nebuchadnezzar re-invested the city, which was
speedily stormed and razed to the ground. Zede-
kiah made an attempt to escape, but was taken
prisoner, and brought before Nebuchadnezzar at
Riblah in Hamath. His eyes were put out, and he
died in a Babylonian dungeon.
After an interval of five years, we find Nebuchad-
nezzar making war against Egypt with his usual
success. His victorious army swept through the
country; and deposing Apries, the Pharaoh-Hophra
of Scripture, he set Amasis upon the throne as hia
vassal and tributary. In this career of unclouded
fortune, in the colossal character of his enterprises,
as in his singular relation to God's "chosen people,"
we recognize circumstances which elevate Nebuchad-
nezzar above almost all the other conquerors of the
ancient world, and invest him with a commanding
individuality that few of them possess. It has
been well said, that the personal element, which
gives so much of its life to history, first comes out
distinctly in him among the world's earlier rulers.
Though his empire is but a name, and his splendid
capital a heap of indistinguishable ruins, we are


28
THE COLOSSAL IMAGE.
conscious of a deep and abiding interest in this
remarkable man, with his magnanimity, his generos-
ity, his grand ideas, his lofty aspirations, his brill-
iant successes, and his signal overthrow. Nor is
our interest the less because we see in him a
remarkable example of that Divine discipline which
regulates the fortunes of humanity. Who does not
know the Scriptural history of his connection with
the prophet Daniel, and the lessons taught to the
great sovereign through the prophet's agency? It
was in the second year of his reign that his dream
of the colossal image, with head of gold and feet of
clay, was interpreted to him by Daniel as signifying
the future establishment of the kingdom of God on
the ruins of the world's imperial systems. The warn-
ing was forgotten; and, intoxicated by a long series
of victories, he set up on the plain of Dura a golden
image of the Chaldean god, probably as an apotheosis
of himself, and commanded that the representatives
of all the nations he had subjugated should offer it
public adoration. Those of Judea alone refused, and
were forthwith cast into the fiery furnace, to endure
the trial of the devouring flames uninjured, and thus
to wring from the monarch an acknowledgment of
the supremacy of Jehovah, the God of Israel.


30
REIGN OF NABONIDUS.
to Nabonidus (or Nabo-nahit, that is, "Nebo
makes prosperous"-), the Labynetus II. of the Greek
historian Herodotus, and the last king of Babylon.
He associated with him in the government of his
empire his son Bil-shar-utzur (Bel-shar-ezer), the
"Belshazzar" of Daniel.
During the progress of these events the power of
the Chaldean empire had waned as rapidly as that
of the Persian had risen. Under Cyrus, a con-
queror scarcely inferior in energy and daring to
Nebuchadnezzar himself, the arms of Persia overran
the whole of Western Asia, and Media and Lydia
ceased to exist as independent states. Alarmed at
his rapid strides, Nabonidus set to work to repair
and strengthen the defences of Babylon; and his
forces, defeated by Cyrus in a battle which they
had risked in the open country, retired within its
massive walls. "The mighty men of Babylon,"
says the prophet Jeremiah, "forbore to fight; they
remained in their holds." Respecting the siege
which ensued the chroniclers afford but the scantiest
details; and it is not easy to understand the parts
played by Nabonidus and his son respectively.
The former, however, would appear to have taken
refuge in Borsippa, where he was surrounded by a


FALL OF BABYLON.
31
Persian army. After the conquest of Babylon he sub-
mitted to Cyrus, and met with generous treatment.
The charge of the great city fell, therefore, to
Belshazzar, who, relying on the immense strength
of its fortifications, and the vast resources it con-
tained, revelled in arrogant security, laughed at the
dangers which threatened him, and did not shrink
from insulting the God of heaven. How long the
defence was maintained, or what were the various
incidents of the siege, we have no means of deter-
mining; but we know that the eventual triumph
of Cyrus was remarkable for its suddenness and
rapidity, and that the whole Chaldean empire was
shattered by it as at a single blow. The capture of
Babylon in a night, while the king and his
courtiers and his people were feasting in careless
ease, is, as Ewald remarks, the fixed kernel of the
tradition in all its forms; and the outline of the
scene in the Book of Daniel stands out distinctly
. from the shadowy background, and throws over the
whole narrative a fiery glow.
The catastrophe with which the history of Baby-
lon thus strangely ended was deficient in no element
that could appeal to the imaginations of men. No
other great city, not Tyre, nor Jerusalem, nor Rome,


32
A "HIGH FESTIVAL."
fell with so terrible a crash; the fall of no other
was attended by such surprising circumstances :—
"The king was on his throne,
The satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine—
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless heathen's wine.
"In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;—
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand."
The picture in the Book of Daniel, unsurpassed
in the graphic character of its details, brings before
us the whole population of Babylon as intent upon
revelry, the occasion, probably, being some "high
festival" of Belus or Nebo. Yet was the mirth in
street and garden as nothing compared with the
mirth in the royal palace, where Belshazzar sat in
state, surrounded by his nobles, with incense going
up before him, and the sounds of music filling the
gorgeous hall, and the tables laden with the vessels
of gold and silver brought from the Temple at


THE WRITING ON THE WALL.
33
Jerusalem. Into these were poured the choice wines
imported from Phoenicia, and the king and his
nobles drank, and with them the women of the
royal haiem; and they pledged the gods whose
images, in wood and stone, and iron and brass,
plated with gold and silver, were set all round about
the hall. "In that same hour came forth the
fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against" the
great golden candlestick which illuminated the wall
of the palace. And Belshazzar saw the part of the
hand which wrote; and, as he looked, his knees
smote together, and his countenance waxed pale.
Pale, too, were the faces of his nobles and of the
women of his harem as they gazed at the dread
warning written in characters of fire; unable to
interpret them, yet intuitively assured that they
boded evil to Babylon and its glories. The
Chaldean soothsayers were summoned, but none of
them could explain the mysterious inscription;
"the unknown letters stood, untold and awful still."
The offer of the purple robe and golden chain of
royal favour,—of the next place in the empire after
the two royal persons of state,—proved ineffectual
to quicken their understanding. Then the queen
mother, the "Sultana Valide","—perhaps, Nitocris,
(608) 3


34
DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR.
daughter of Nebuchadnezzar,—advised that Daniel,
the aged Hebrew seer, should be sent for. He came,
and quickly read the Divine judgment, for it was
embodied in Hebrew letters,—Mene, Mene, Tekel,
Peres; and signified that the days of Babylon the
mighty were numbered and ended, that it had
been weighed and found light, and that, therefore,
it was divided and given to the Persians. "In
that night," says Scripture, with awful abrupt-
ness,— "in that night was Belshazzar the king
slain."
From other sources we are able to learn in what
way the last scene of all was brought about. The
great river which had been the source of Babylon's
prosperity now proved the agent of its ruin. By
diverting its course, Cyrus opened a way for his
army along the river-bed into the very heart of the
city; and his stratagem was assisted by the contemp-
tuous negligence of the Chaldeans themselves, who
had left the bronze gates unclosed which opened on
the river. The area within the walls was of such
immense extent that considerable portions of it
might well be held by the conquerors before any
alarm could reach the palace; especially as the
clash of battle would be unheard amid the far-


END OF THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE. 35
resounding din of festivities. So it came to pass as
Jeremiah had predicted: "One post shall run to
meet another, and one messenger to meet another,
to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken
at one end, and that the passages are stopped, and
the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men
of war are affrighted."
"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away;
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay:
The shroud, his robe of state;
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate,
The Persian on his throne!"
Thus fell the Empire of Babylon in B.C. 538. It
was a fall which resounded over all the known
world. "At the noise of the taking of Babylon
the earth was moved as by an earthquake, and the
cry was heard among the nations." "A sound of
a cry cometh from Babylon, and great destruction
from the land of the Chaldeans: because the Lord
hath spoiled Babylon, and destroyed out of her the
great voice; when her waves do roar like great
waters, a noise of their voice is uttered." Babylon
the great, Babylon the mighty was fallen!
And Isaiah, remembering its iniquities, and looking


36
PROPHECY OF ISAIAH.
forward into the future with a vision strengthened
by Divine power, proclaimed aloud the coming
desolation of the proud Chaldean city :—
"And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty
of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God
overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be
inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from genera-
tion to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch
tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their
fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie
there; and their houses shall be full of doleful
creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs
shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the
islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and
dragons in their pleasant palaces."
The prediction, indeed, was not immediately
fulfilled; but though the word of doom is sometimes
slow in its operation, it is always sure. After the
Persian conquest, Babylonia became a province of
the empire, and Babylon one of the royal residences,
ranking as the second in honour. It was from
thence that Cyrus issued his edict for the return of
the Jews to Palestine. His successors resided there
for a great part of the year, though disturbed at
first by the revolts of its Chaldean inhabitants.


ALEXANDER AT BABYLON.
37
When Persia fell before the conquering march of
Alexander the Great, Babylon fell with it. It was
there that the Macedonian hero held his court after
his return from his Indian expedition (b.c. 324). It
was there that he yielded to the Asiatic influences,
and dreamed of converting his military empire into
a theocracy. His imagination, struck by the
natural advantages of its position, was busy with
schemes for making it his imperial capital, and
reviving the prosperity of the country; and it was
while visiting the lower course of the Euphrates,
with the view of repairing its system of canals, that
he caught the marsh-fever which his intemperate
habits aggravated into a fatal malady. His successor
did not rebuild Babylon, which had partly fallen
into decay, but chose a site near it on the banks of
the Tigris, which he called Seleucia, and constructed
of materials conveyed from the old Chaldean capital.
When another change of dynasty took place, and
the Parthian occupied the throne of the Greek, the
city was again removed, and Ctesiphon was founded
on the opposite side of the river. Then came the
Arabs, who desired a new capital for their new
empire, and finally fixed its site at Bagdad.
Meanwhile, the decay of Babylon had been rapid.


38 "A DWELLING-PLACE FOR DRAGONS."
The full waters of the Euphrates, no longer kept
within bounds by embankments and canals, poured
over the level plain, and transformed it into
malarious swamps. The temples, and palaces, and
mansions, built of brick, became masses of ruin,
"a dwelling-place for dragons," the haunt of the
tiger and the jackal. And the desolation extended
when that land which Chaldean civilization had
rescued from the savage Turanian tribes, and de-
fended against the Arabs of the desert, once more,
by a strange recurrence in the cycle of history—aa
Mr. Philip Smith remarks,—fell under the nominal
government of the Turanian Turks, and became the
real possession of the Arab nomades. And so the
glory of Babylon has utterly passed away, and the
doom foretold by the prophet has been literally
fulfilled. The whole plain is a wilderness :—
"With half-closed eye a lion there
Is basking in his noontide lair,
Or prowls in twilight gloom.
The Golden City's king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreams
Sprang from rough Ocean's womb.
"But where are now his eagle wings,
That sheltered erst a thousand kings,
Hiding the glorious sky
From half the nations, till they own
No holier name, no mightier throne ?—
That vision is gone by.


RUINS OF BABYLON. 39
"Quenched is the golden statue's ray;
The breath of heaven has blown away
What toiling earth had piled,
Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's strand
The fabrics of a child."—(Keble.)
Shapeless heaps of rubbish, says Mr. Layard,
cover for many an acre the deserted plain. The
lofty banks of ancient canals traverse the country
like natural ridges of hills. Some have been long
choked with sand; others still carry the copious
waters of the Euphrates to distant villages and
groves of palm. On all sides fragments of glass,
marble, pottery, and inscribed brick, are blended
with that peculiar nitrous and whitened soil which,
created by the remains of ancient habitations,
checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site
of Babylon "a naked and hideous waste."
The most remarkable of the relics of the great
city lie at a short distance inland from the
left bank of the river; and here, according to
Chesney, three of its four great quarters can still
be traced,—namely, Amram, the Kasr, and the
Mujellebeh. The pyramidal mass of El-Heimar,
about six miles to the east, is supposed to indicate
the fourth quarter.
Amram is described as consisting of an extensive


40 THE KASR AND THE MUJELI.EBEH.
quadrangular mound, to the north of which lie other
considerable mounds, some of which are circular.
The site of the Kasr, or Palace, is marked by
numerous fragments of glass, and of ornamented
stucco-work. Here also are the massive square
buttresses that supported the Hanging Gardens.
For centuries they have resisted, and for centuries
will continue to resist, the assaults of time, being
constructed of the finest yellow brick, united by a
peculiarly durable cement. When General Chesney
visited the place, in 1835, a single cedar tree
flourished among the ruins; but this has since been
swept away.
To the west lies the MujellebeTi, or Babel. A
very remarkable feature here is a projecting work
placed below the summit of each angle, in the form
of three semicircular towers connected together, so
as to afford what modern military engineers call a
flanking defence. On the surface of the mound are
various apertures leading into subterranean passages,
which are arched overhead, and formed by solid
brick walls cemented with bitumen. The ground
plan of the MujellebeTi is oblong, its sides nearly
corresponding to the four cardinal points. The
northern and southern measure each 200 yards in





THE TOWER OF BABEL.
43
length, the eastern is 180 yards, the western 130.
The summit is now of irregular elevation, varying
from 130 feet at the lowest to 180 feet at the
highest.
On the opposite bank of the river, about seven or
eight miles to the south-west, rises the extraordinary
pile of the Birs-i-NimvOd. This, in dimensions,
almost exactly resembles the Mujelleb^h, but the
height to the top of the wall is at least one hundred
feet more. Mr. Rich, who visited it in 1811,
identifies it with the Temple of Bel. Other
authorities regard it as marking the site of the
ancient Borsippa; and some have seen in it the
remains of the Tower of Babel.*
A recent traveller, M. Lejean, supplies a graphic
description of the present condition of the plain and
ruins of Babylon, which we shall adapt and condense
for the information of our readers.
That Babylonia, he says, which in the era of the
Persians yielded fully a third of the whole agri-
cultural revenue of the empire, is now a solitude
and a desert. In the days of Herodotus it was
* The reader may be referred to the works of Rich, Sir R Ker Porter, Ains-
worth, RenDell, Rawlinson, and Layard.


44
WORKS OF IRRIGATION.
remarkable for its abundant harvest of cereals, re-
paying the husbandman's labour a hundred-fold;
yet it must be remembered that it was not naturally
fertile. The soil was arid and sun-parched; rain
fell rarely; and no pleasant springs or fertilizing
streams enriched it with verdure. But Chaldean
enterprise and industry conquered every obstacle.
From the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Diyala
broad canals were led across the plain, while others
served to connect the great rivers, and afforded the
means of easy transport and communication. These
canals were so many arteries from which issued
smaller water-courses; these in their turn feeding
innumerable rills, until the whole resembled the
net-work of veins which covers the surface of a
leaf. The principal channels were navigable, and
presented a busy scene with the constant passage
to and fro of barges laden with corn and fruit
Xenophon mentions four of these. The most im-
portant now in existence is the Saklaoridja, which
is forty feet broad, and the current of which flows
at the rate of a quarter of a mile an hour.
The ancient Oyndes is now named the Diyala.
Connected with it is an historical anecdote. In
advancing against Babylon, Cyrus nearly lost his


BABYLON AS IT WAS.
45
life in its waters, his horse being carried off its feet.
Enraged at what he deemed the insolence of the
river, he vowed that he would reduce its pride until
it could not frighten a child; and employed his
whole army in excavating trenches of outlet which
contracted the Gyndes into an insignificant stream.
In this useless work a whole summer was wasted,
and the campaign against Babylon failed for that
year. We need hardly add that the story has no
authentic foundation.
Let us now, in imagination, substitute ourselves
for some traveller, crossing, in the days of the
warrior-queen Semiramis, the plains of Babylon,
then at the summit of its pride and power. Before
us, on both sides of the broad causeway, furrowed
by the wheels of heavy chariots, extends an open
and somewhat monotonous level, undulating with
a green sea of corn. At intervals, rows of palm-
trees spread their shade over populous villages,
consisting of circular houses, built of palm-wood,
with conical roofs, and high gates coated with
bitumen,—the habitations those of artisan and
peasant. Those of the nobles, like the temples,
are easily recognized by their quadrangular form,
and by being built of bricks, some unbaked, some


46
BARGES AND BARGEMEN.
baked and covered with a thick shining vamish of
a deep green colour. A few large towns, like those
of Sippara and Accad, are conspicuous from afar by
the lofty towers of brick which dominate them.
The vivid verdure of the cultivated fields and
pastures is intersected by numerous whitish lines;
these are the banks of the canals, in which round
boats of leather or osier, strengthened by a thick
layer of bitumen, are passing up and down. They
carry cargoes of grain; and, as they cannot move
against the current, on reaching their destination
and being unloaded, they are taken to preces; their
framework is sold; and the outer skin placed on
the back of an ass, and transported to the original
point of departure. The men who work these
barges wear a long stuff tunic, with a woollen
abam flung over it, in the Arab fashion; a kind
of Persian mitre covers their long plaited hair; and
they carry in their hands a staff wrought with the
ingenious carving in which the Easterns excel.
Everywhere we see an exuberance of life and
activity; the population is so dense that along some
of the canals, notably the Nil and the Chdt-Ibrahirn,
the inhabited places succeed one another uninter-
ruptedly for a distance of twelve to fifteen miles.


PRESENT DESOLATION.
47
Such was the Past: as for the Present, it speaks
for itself. An immense yellow desert, covered with
heaps of ruins, and traversed in all directions by
dried-up canals; a few poor villages inhabited by
fellahs, and scattered along the river-bank; here
and there some clusters of black tents belonging
to various tribes of Arabs, each more squalid and
addicted to robbery than the other;—such is the
present condition of the realm of Nebuchadnezzar.
In the time of the Khalifs the ancient prosperity of
the land had not disappeared; but the Turks came,
and we know the old Oriental proverb,—"Where
the Turk treads, the grass ceases to grow." The
blocked-up canals have ceased to run; the peasants
have fled before the Arabs, who are no longer held
down by a strong government; the Euphrates, left
to itself, has distributed the surplus of its annual
inundations over the western plains, which are
covered with pestiferous lagoons.
Mounting on one of the embankments that still
remain, we are able to survey the whole of the
immense Babylonian panorama.
There are ruins, and eloquent ruins in Europe—
those of Rome and Athens have a poetry of their
own; but in the Western World vitality is so in-


48
VIEW OF THE LANDSCAPE.
tense, and life so quick to fill up the gaps made by
death, that our very monuments are soon lost to
sight, or at least to memory, among the new edifices
which modern activity piles up around them. One
of the most celebrated of our dead cities, Sparta, is
not so fast asleep in the shade of its oleanders but
that it can sometimes listen to the babble of its
coquettish neighbour, Mistra; while the nymph of
Eurotas must be sore astonished when she finds
herself face to face with its prefect in official
embroidery. These contrasts are not without their
attraction; but nothing in Europe can so elevate
and chasten the mind as the sublime solitudes of
Palmyra and Baalbek, Memphis and Babylon.
From the descriptions of recent travellers we
might expect to see at Babylon a confused and
undulating mass of ruins; but, on the contrary, the
landscape is open, clear, and with well marked and
easily comprehended outlines. Immediately at our
feet, running parallel to one another in an east-south-
east direction, six sloping banks mark the course
of three canals, two of which are ancient, while one
is modern. Between the two former runs a broad
ditch, which may be supposed to answer to the
northern fosse or moat of the Golden City; between


50
THE GREAT LAKE.
mute, desolate grandeur of the desert where sleeps
the city which, in its time, was the capital and
centre of the civilized world. It has nothing of the
almost cheerful aspect of the ruins of Nineveh,
where a luxuriant vegetation has overgrown the
ramparts and shattered palaces, where a bright
melodious stream sings and sparkles through the
reeds, more freely than in the days of Nimrud or
Salmanazar. Here the vitreous soil seems to labour
under a curse; the peaceable denizens of the steppes
of the Tigris, such as the hare and the gazelle, are
nowhere seen; not even the black tent of an Arab
relieves the solitude.
Crossing in succession the three canals, we stand
in the midst of Babylon, and observe that the great
trench to which allusion has been made strikes
towards the lake—now dried up, and its bed cov-
ered with lacustrine shells—which Semiramis, ac-
cording to some authorities, and Nitocris, according
to others, constructed to receive the superfluous
waters of the Euphrates.
As we cross the glittering plain we suffer much
from the enervating leaden heat, which seems to
come up in gusts from the nitrous soil. We reach


A MOHAMMEDAN LEGEND.
51
the Mujellebeh, or Babel, and ascertain that its four
sides, as Chesney states, face the four quarters of the
heavens. There can be no doubt that it represents
the general plan of the ancient citadel or palace, the
outer buildings of which have been swept away by
the twofold action of man and the elements. After
Cyrus and his victorious battalions came the masons
of Hillah, who converted Babylon into an immense
quarry of bricks. Cuneiform inscriptions abound
here, but none of much interest have been dis-
covered.
The following Mohammedan legend is attached
to Babel. The Creator sent thither on a mission
two of his purest angels, Harout and Marout, who
forgot themselves so far as to fall in love with an
honourable and virtuous married lady. The latter
obtained from them, in a moment of weakness, the
watchword which opens the gate of paradise,
whither she hastened to depart, leaving the two
enamoured seraphs to awaken to a sense of the
enormity of their intended sin. Straightway they
confessed it to the Eternal, who, touched by their
repentance, commuted the terrible penance they had
incurred into a light punishment; he consigned
them to an invisible well at Babel, in which they


52
ALONG THE EUPHRATES.
remain suspended by their eyebrows until the day
of doom.
Descending the hill, we proceed along the course
of the beautiful Euphrates. Its two banks, and
particularly the right, which is somewhat lower and
better irrigated than the other, form one long un-
interrupted series of gardens, shaded with date-
palms, and starred with pomegranate-flowers; at
intervals, some rustic irrigatory machines," set in
movement by two meagre horses, raise their long
leathern sacks and fantastic timber frame-work; a
few isolated farms are visible, and, behind the
palms, a couple of Arab settlements. This soft and
living landscape lies but two paces from the
dreariest solitude; never was there a sharper or
more striking contrast.
Crossing the river by a bridge of boats, we make
our way to Hillah, which occupies part of the site
of the southern quarter of Babylon, and dates from
the epoch of the khalifs. It is mentioned in the
travels of Benjamin of Tudela, who found in it a
population of six thousand Jews. At present the
Jews number about five thousand, or one third of
the total population. Mr. J. S. Buckingham gives


MR. Buckingham's adventure. 53
an amusing account of a little adventure which
befell him here. He and his companions, on their
return from a visit to the mounds at Heimar,
entered the eastern division of Hillah; that is, that
part of it which lies on the eastern side of the
Euphrates. It appeared to them to consist chiefly,
as it does now, of one good street, leading directly
to the river, and used as a bazaar, with numerous
smaller streets diverging on either hand. At the
western end it was closed by a large door, through
which they passed, coming immediately on the
bridge of boats which forms the means of transit
across the river.
They happened to arrive at an hour when the
bridge—not of the solidest construction—was par-
ticularly crowded; and every person's attention
being arrested by the sight of an European dress,
the crowd grew denser and denser as the curious
halted to stare at the strangers. Their Kurd guide,
who forced his way before them, rode a very spirited
horse; and as he every now and then reared on his
hind heels, he made the boat under him roll from
side to side. This, communicating a similar motion
to the planks of the bridge, never failed to be fol-
lowed by a shriek from that part of the crowd who


54 mr. Buckingham's adventure.
stood near. Mr. Buckingham's companion, who rode
next in order, shared in the general alarm; and,
being naturally impatient, gave vent to his feelings
in language which, though none understood, all felt
to be expressive of anger; while Mr. Buckingham
himself, riding behind as attendant or escort, was
sore bested to keep off with his lance the train of
insolent boys who had gathered round, exclaiming,
"Feringhee! Giaour! Kafr!" (Frank! Unbeliever!
Infidel!) and jumping on the elastic planks of the
bridge, purposely to increase the confusion and ap-
prehension that prevailed.
It was in the midst of this scene of mirth to
some, and of fear to others, and of annoyance and
vexation to himself, that a couple of Bedaween halted
to address Mr. Buckingham, who wore the Arab
attire, calling out very gravely, "Ya Arab, ibn
Arab" (You Arab, the son of an Arab)—a com-
plimentary phrase, equivalent in purport to the
well-known "Hebrew of the Hebrews." He re-
plied in the affirmative, as the shortest answer he
could give, and the one most likely to prevent further
questions. But he was mistaken. They first in-
quired why he travelled with a Kurd; and before
he could reply, abused him for associating with a


AT HILLAH.
55
people whom the Arabs hold in detestation. As it
was neither the time nor the place for an explana-
tion, Mr. Buckingham allowed them to believe that
he was an Arab, with no proper regard for the
honour of his race. For though they would have
seen nothing abnormal or objectionable in a Kurd's
acting as escort to a Frank and Christian, yet for an
Arab to share that duty with one of the despised
people seemed to them a reproach and a disgrace.
"El humd ul Illah!" (Praise be to God!) was
heard from a score of tongues, as the party stepped
from the oscillating bridge on to terra firma; and
"Mash Allah!" and "Suit Salamee!" and other
shouts of wonder and self-gratulation on reaching
the opposite side of the stream in safety, followed,
as if they had escaped from the horrors of a storm
at sea, rather than from the dangers of a floating
bridge in a calm and not a rapid river.
No such incident befalls us on our visit to Hillah,
and we have leisure to notice the varied character
both of its houses and its inhabitants. The Jews
have thriven and waxed strong; but the reverse has
been the case with the Chaldeans, of whom there
are not above three thousand. These Chaldeans are


5 8
BIRS NIMEUD.
boughs having been pulled to pieces by travellers
and tourists for the sake of the wood.
Let us now diverge again to Birs Nimrud, which
lies to the south-west. Mr. George Smith charac-
terizes it as one of the most imposing ruins in the
country; its height being rendered all the more
impressive by its position in the centre of a vast
plain, with nothing to break the view. The prin-
cipal mound, as we have already stated, rises about
one hundred and fifty feet above the plain in the
shape of a pyramid or cone, on the summit of which
stands a solid mass of vitrified bricks. We repeat
these details for the sake of adding that Sir Henry
Rawlinson, when he examined this site, concluded
that the tower was in seven stages: the lowest, 272
feet each way, and 26 feet high; the second, 230
feet square, and 26 feet high; the third, 188 feet
square, and 26 feet high; the fourth, 146 feet
square, and only 15 feet high. Thus it will be
seen that each stage decreased by 42 feet in length
and breadtn. From receptacles in the corners of
one of these stages, Sir Henry Rawlinson obtained
inscribed cylinders, which stated that the building
was the Temple of the Seven Planets; that it had


VITRIFIED BRICKS.
59
been partially built by a former king of Babylon;
and, having fallen into decay, was restored and com-
pleted by Nebuchadnezzar.
Our authority, M. Lejean, sees in the vitrified
blocks on its summit the most remarkable peculi-
arity of this so-called "Tower of Babel." At first
he took them to be igneous rocks, of which they
have all the appearance, and especially the cohesion
.
A second glance showed him the greenish-yellow
layers of bricks held together by the well-known
bituminous cement, and covered with a coat of
bitumen; the whole having been baked and vitri-
fied en bloc, until it attained a solidity equalled only
by that of the Roman masonry. M. Lejean suggests,
and the suggestion is not improbable, that the entire
tower originally was encased in the same kind of
vitrification.
The same writer examines into the theory which
puts forward Birs Nimrud as the Tower of Babel—
a theory endorsed by the late eminent Assyriologist,
Mr. George Smith. He dismisses it with, as it
appears to us, unnecessary readiness, and adopts the
following conclusions—which, however, are not in-
consistent with it: That the Birs is the Temple of


60
BABYLONIAN ASTRONOMERS.
Belus described by Herodotus and Diodorus; that
it was at the same time, as Sir H. Rawlinson has
proved, the "Tower of the Seven Planets," or the
principal observatory of the Babylonians; and,
finally, that the great mass of ruins lying to the
east, and surmounted by a ziaret, or oratory, con-
secrated to Abraham, represents the Bursif of the
Chaldeans, the Borsippa of Strabo, the centre of one
of the two great astronomical castes of Babylon, the
Borsippanians; the other, that of the Orchoenians,
was settled at Orchoe, now called Warka.
It is impossible to wander among these ruins
without emotion, when we reflect that they saw, in
all probability, the origin and development of the
most exact and beautiful of the sciences. It is said
that Alexander the Great found the Babylonians in
possession of an uninterrupted series of astrono-
mical observations extending over nineteen hundred
and four years; that he sent the catalogue to Aris-
totle; and that, afterwards, Ptolemy made it the
basis of his Astronomical Geography. We know
that they were inscribed on enamelled bricks, like
those which have been discovered by thousands at
Birs, at Kasr, at Amram.
The ancients attributed to Borsippa another spe-


LAKE OF HINDIA.
61
ciality—the possession of an enormous quantity of
bats of exceptional size. They seem, however, to
have emigrated to Hillah and Bagdad; and no other
souvenir of them remained at Birs than a very fine
figure of a bat in bronze discovered among the ruins
by Colonel (now Sir Arnold) Kemball, when British
Consul at Bagdad.
A short distance from Birs begins a sheet of
water, "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue," extending
almost to the western horizon; this is the lake or
lagoon of Hindia, formed by the overflow of the
canal of the same name. It stretches in a semi-
circle around the Birs, and is studded with numerous
islands and banks of reeds, the dazzling green of
which contrasts very agreeably with the somewhat
sombre and "ashen " tint of the plain. Among the
islands are scattered various pretty Arab villages,
surrounded by luxuriant verdure.
Nothing can be more strange or sharp or painful
than the contrast between the populous life of the
lagoon and the desolation of the plain. Between
Birs Nimrud and Hillah there is not a house;
nothing but ruins, ruins, ruins. A score of dried-up
canals bear witness to the ancient prosperity of a
country where now-a-days the traveller may wander


02
AN ARAB DEMESNE.
for twelve to fifteen hours without encountering
any other sign of the presence of man than some
tombs of Mohammedan sheikhs, and some clusters
of black tents, inhabited by Arabs lank of limb and
fierce of mien.
The voyager, desirous of viewing Babylon aright,
should undertake a short excursion on the Hindia;
hiring for this purpose one of those boats, well shaped
and good sailers, painted black like the gondolas of
Venice, which circulate incessantly in the arteries of
the lagoon, and may be regarded as the "wooden
walls" of Arab liberty. And, in effect, the Arabs
are lords and masters of the Hindia, from which the
Turks have hitherto made no attempt to drive them.
"When I arrived," says a recent traveller, "at Birs,
just as I was about to pass the modern canal which
separates the Tower from the main mass of the Bor-
sippa ruins, I saw among the reedy growth of this
pretty canal (which is utilized, I believe, in the irri-
gation of the neighbouring fields) one of these boats,
near which stood a group of Arabs, clothed in black
and brown abaias. It is my belief that by paying
suitably for the hire of such a boat, and preserving
a cautious and peaceful demeanour, one would be
well received in the lacustrine villages. These people


C4
OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD.
called Chichper, or Sisper, and would seem to mark
the site of the ancient Sippara, which, according to
the Chaldean tradition of Berosus, is the oldest of the
cities of the world.
Berosus, in his account of the Deluge, which cor-
responds in many respects with the Biblical narra-
tive, says, that Xisithrus, the Chaldean Noah,
warned by the Divine Voice of the approaching sub-
mersion of the earth, took the books of the Chaldean
religion and interred them in the City of the Sun,
at Sippara. After the waters had subsided, he re
covered them, and carried them with him to Babylon,
which he began to reconstruct.
According to Strabo, who Grecizes the name into
Hipparenum, it was a famous centre of the Chaldean
teaching.
To the north of Babylon, and on the left bank
of the Euphrates, lie the ruins of Akkad, or Agadi,
mentioned in the Book of Genesis as a city of
Nimrud. In an inscription discovered at Kouyunjik
by the late George Smith, is given a history of its
king Sargon. He was born of royal parents, but
concealed by his mother, who placed him on the
Euphrates in an ark of rushes coated with bitumen.





68
WILD BEASTS OF THE FOREST.
and Assyria, as that of Abraham predominates in
Mesopotamia, that of Caesar in ancient France, that
of Trajan in the Danubian valley, and that of Alex-
ander the Great throughout the East. Whence or
how arises this wide-spread popularity of a man who
was the founder perhaps of a race or dynasty, but in
Biblical history figures only as "a mighty hunter
before the Lord "?
It must be remembered that the chase, in days of
old, differed absolutely from the mild and inoffensive
amusement to which our modern squires are so par-
tial. To gain a clear idea of the "mighty hunter,"
we must allow our fancy to travel back to the early
ages of humanity, when the free, sovereign, and un-
restrained forest covered the world with its dense
shades. The eldest born of that forest was not man,
but the roaring, tumultuous, ferocious multitude of
beasts of prey, from the tiger which leaped from his
lair on the victim he durst not encounter face to face,
to the lion and the leopard, the stealthy depredators
of the flocks—to the elephant trampling heavily
through the maize-fields which he desolated—to the
hippopotamus wallowing in the stream, and the wild
boar lying in wait in the thickets—to the malicious
ape which destroyed for the pleasure it found in


A MIGHTY HUNTER.
69
destruction; not to speak of the python with its
formidable coils, of the cerastes with its deadly fangs,
of the crocodile half hidden among the river-reeds,
and the alligator basking in the mud of the sunny
pool. It was to combat with such foes as these that
Nimrud sallied forth; and it was because of his suc-
cess and his prowess as a hunter in the primeval
forest that his name has become the nucleus of so
many fables and traditions.


CHAPTER II.
THE COURSE OF THE EUPHRATES.
EFORE we proceed to sketch the more
interesting features of the Euphrates
valley, which may yet become of great
importance to England in connection with the over-
land route to India, it will be desirable that we
shall briefly indicate the general direction of the
river.
In Central Armenia, at no considerable distance
from the shores of the Black Sea, the Euphrates, or
El Frat, rises. It is formed by the junction of two
streams, the Kara-Su, or "Black River," and the
Mourad-Chai. The sources of the former are situ-
ated in the Anti-Taurus, twenty-five miles north-east
of the town of Erzerum, in about lat. 40° N., and
long. 41° 30' E.; those of the Mourad, which is the
larger branch, about seventy miles further to the



THE EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS.





COURSE OF THE EUPHRATES.
73
east, in the same range. The former flows south-
west, to a point ten miles north of Keban' Ma'dan,
where it is joined by the latter (lat. 38° 58' N.); and
the united stream, under the name of El Frat, or the
Euphrates, continues in a south-westerly course for
about fifty miles, breaking through the Taurus, and
flowing through the most varied and picturesque
scenery imaginable. At Sumeisat, eleven hundred
and ninety-five miles from the sea, it becomes navi-
gable. After a strange semicircular sweep, it passes
Bir, which is one hundred miles distant from the
Mediterranean, and about six hundred and thirty
feet above its level. At Samester it takes a southerly
direction, and forms the boundary, for a considerable
distance, between Mesopotamia and Syria. Bending
to the south-east, it stretches across an immense
plain, and for seven hundred miles receives no tribu-
taries, until at Kurneh it is swollen by the swift
waters of the Tigris. It now takes the name of the
Shatt-el-Arab, and gradually developing into a deep
and copious river, maintains a south-easterly course
until, by several mouths, it empties itself into the
Persian Gulf, ninety miles below Kurneh.
The total length of the Euphrates is estimated at
1,600 miles, while the area of its basin has been


74
CHARACTER OF ITS BASIN.
computed at 195,000 geographical square miles.
The volume of water which it discharges into the
Persian Gulf is 401,010 cubic feet per second. The
average width of the Shatt-el-Arab exceeds 600 feet;
and its depth of water is sufficient for vessels of 500
tons. That of the Upper Euphrates is eight or nine
feet. Its current, in the flooded season, runs at the
rate of five miles an hour, but at other times varies
from two and a quarter to three miles.
The higher reaches of the river are enclosed be-
tween wooded hills, and diversified by a succession
of low, narrow islands, generally inhabited, and often
cultivated. Below Hit the scenery changes its
character; there are fewer hills, and the grassy
banks of the river are occupied by Arab villages.
In the neighbourhood of Lamlum the country is level,
and rises but slightly above the river. Irrigation,
therefore, is rendered easy; and the land, being
plentifully watered, yields abundant crops, while the
date-palm flourishes vigorously, and affords a welcome
shade.
The inundation of the Euphrates, caused by the
melting of the mountain-snows, begins early in March
and continues to increase until the end of May.
The river is very full and rapid during the month of


IN THE ARABIAN DESERT.
75
June, after which it begins to subside, and in mid-
September reaches its lowest.
The water of the Euphrates, though turbid, is not
unwholesome. Fish are abundant.
In 1835 Captain (afterwards General) Chesney,
who had previously distinguished himself by his ex-
ertions in endeavouring to open up an overland route
to India, was selected by the British Government to
take charge of an expedition for the exploration of
the Euphrates.
As early as 1830 he had made acquaintance with
the river, having on that occasion traversed the
Arabian desert from Damascus, a journey of which
he furnishes some interesting particulars. He had
joined a caravan, which was bound for El-Kaim, a
town on the Euphrates, and thence for Bagdad.
The day's march lasted generally about eight hours.
Then the camels were made to lie down to be
relieved of their loads, which were placed in con-
venient order for reloading in the morning. After
being allowed to browse for a couple of hours,
each animal was compelled to swallow a ball of
cotton seeds before taking its rest. Then the Arabs
prepared their own supper, consisting usually of thin


76
ADVENTURE WITH ARABS.
cakes of bread, and a pillau of bourgul, or boiled
wheat, mixed with some butter or oil, followed by
a few dates, and an ample supply of water.
The scenery through which our traveller passed
was exceedingly monotonous; a dead sandy level,
being bounded on either side by a range of elevated
but barren hills. One day Captain Chesney had
endeavoured to beguile the time, rendered wearisome
by the monotony of the landscape, and strayed to
some little distance from his party, which suggested
to the joke-loving Arabs the idea of a little amuse-
ment. A couple of Arabs, almost naked, and ap-
parently much excited, rushed wildly towards him
from behind a hill, brandishing a stick, and yelling
most vociferously. Being wholly unarmed, and taken
by surprise, the traveller took to his heels, closely
pursued by his supposed enemies. "On approaching
the caravan," he says, "two of our people darted
forward with drawn swords, as if to give me protec-
tion and intercept my pursuers. They still endeav-
oured to get at me by making a round, but being
foiled, their trick and disguise came to an end,
though the joke continued to be heartily enjoyed by
the whole party for some time."
In the course of their journey over the parched








THE IMPERIAL ROAD. 79
and sterile plain the camels suffered considerably
from want of water, and even the caravan was sore
bestead. There was great rejoicing, therefore, when,
on the eighth day, they arrived at an ancient well
not far from the site of the once splendid Palmyra.
It was cased with stone, and of considerable depth.
The operation of drawing water was very tedious;
for the caravan had but a single leathern bucket,
which was lowered and drawn up with tiresome
iteration until all the water-skins were filled. This
operation completed, the camels had to be furnished
with a copious draught, as also with a sufficient
reserve to enable them to continue their journey.
The second or reserve stomach with which, as our
readers know, the "ship of the desert" is equipped,
contains, when filled, water enough to last for six or
even nine days.
As they followed up the Derb Sultan, or Imperial
Road, which in olden days led from Palmyra to
Zenobia's summer palace on the banks of the
Euphrates, they found that the scenery improved,
and the country became less desert; green hills
loomed against the horizon, and healthy shrubs and
vigorous growths of grass spread all around. On
the fourteenth day they crossed the rocky bed of a


80
IRRIGATING MACHINERY.
partially dried-up river; and on the fifteenth came
in sight of the tower of El-Kaim, and, soon after-
wards, of the waters of the great Euphrates, spark-
ling in the sunshine, at El-Werdi. That evening
the caravan encamped at the foot of some low
hills overhanging its right bank. Here, while at
supper, Chesney's attention was attracted by a curi-
ous dull creaking sound, accompanied by that of
falling water, mingled occasionally with the roar of
lions from a different quarter. He sallied forth to
ascertain what it all meant, and after walking about a
mile, came upon some machinery by which the river
water is raised for purposes of irrigation. This is
effected by means of a light, graceful aqueduct,
having at its extremity a water-wheel of fifty feet
in diameter, to which the current communicates a
rotatory motion and the requisite power, through a
simple contrivance which, at the same time, fills the
aqueduct. Water-wheels of this description are very
common along the banks of the Upper Euphrates. A
number of clay cylinders, each about eleven and a
half inches long by three and a half inches in diameter,
are placed round the periphery of the wheel, and
set in motion by the current. These successively
discharge their contents into a conduit, which con-


ISLANDS OF THE EUPHRATES.
81
veys the water into the interior with a creaking noise
audible at a considerable distance.
Captain Chesney now left the caravan, in order
to push forward to Anna, where he hoped to make
arrangements for descending the Euphrates. From
El-Kaim he followed the course of the river down-
ward, in an easterly direction. Just above Rava
it pours its broken waters over the rocky ledge of
Karablah, which constitutes the great obstacle to
navigation between Bir and Bosrah. Below Rava
the river winds through a long chain of picturesquely
wooded islands until it reaches Anna, a town of
some importance. In the vicinity is the island of ■
Tilbus, crowned with ruins of the fortifications of
Thelutha or Thilutha, which at one time contained
the treasury of the Parthians, and at a later period
was unsuccessfully besieged by the Emperor Julian.
On another island moulder the remains of the
palace of the Persian emperor Ardeshir; on a third,
those of an extensive castle; on a fourth, those of a
bridge which in former days threw its span across
the whole breadth of the river; and on a fifth, rises
a lofty and graceful Persian "minaret." On the
opposite bank are visible the memorials of the ancient
Anatho. Thus the entire neighbourhood of Anna
(608) 6


82
AN ARAB RAFT.
is replete with features of interest; and the town
itself, which commands the passage between Aleppo
and Bagdad, is well worth inspection.
Here Captain Chesney obtained a raft, on which
he proposed to undertake the descent of the Euphrates.
Its dimensions were as follows:—Its base was a
rectangular platform, fourteen and a half feet long
by thirteen and a half feet wide, with a sort of well,
or inlet, left open at the after-extremity of the
structure, which was duly strengthened by succes-
sive layers of branches, crossing each other at right
aDgles, until they attained the sufficient thickness
of about two feet. On the interlaced branches
rested rough planks, supporting a platform on which
was fitted up a kind of fire-place protected by an
enclosure of wet clay; and the buoyancy of the
whole was secured by forty inflated sheep-skins
placed beneath the raft.
Captain Chesney's party consisted of his dragoman
and his dragoman's slave boy, an Arab pilot named
Getgood, and two Arabs to guide the raft, each of
whom was provided with a kind of long-handled
paddle made of date-wood. Supplied with a tent,
cooking utensils, some fuel, and a stock of provisions,
they embarked; and proceeded to float down the


AN AMBUSCADE.
83
river with the current. Some distance below Tiblus,
the river sweeps to the south-west for five miles;
and then, at Hawajji-el-Khawaslik, makes a singular
bend or convolution, quite in the shape of a horse-
shoe, returning to its original course at a point
only two miles distant in a straight line from the
point of divergence.
As the voyagers passed between a double row of
high hills covered with brushwood, they caught
sight of a sudden puff of smoke on the right bank,
and almost immediately a couple of balls struck the
water, one beyond, and the other rather short of the
raft. As the assailants were covered by the brush-
wood, the captaiD and his people immediately
arranged their sacks and baggage so as also to form
a screen. Another shot followed; whereupon the
dragoman fired a discharge of buckshot right into
the brushwood, with the effect of dislodging the
Arabs, and securing the voyagers from further an-
noyance.
They passed Hadisa, a walled town situated on a
low island; floated over some formidable rocks,
which cause a whirlpool; and so dropped down
between green banks studded with villages and
aqueducts, the view being bounded by groves of


84
ARRIVAL AT HIT.
date-palms and high hills. Throughout the whole
distance from Anna to Hit,—that is, one hundred
and thirty-one miles,—they passed through a constant
succession of water-mills and aqueducts, villages and
hamlets,—the river having an average width of
three hundred and fifty yards and a depth of
eleven feet. Its surface is enlivened by numerous
green and pleasant islands. At Hit their attention
was called to the boiling springs of bitumen, which
darken the sky with dense clouds of smoke. Boat-
building is the principal occupation of the inhabitants,
and their method of construction is as original as it
is simple.
"They have neither docks nor basins, nor even
slips, to facilitate their labour; yet they can con-
struct a serviceable boat in a short time, with no other
tools than an axe and a saw, with a ladle for pouring
out the melted pitch, and a roller for smoothing it.
The first process in this primitive mode of ship-
building, is to choose a level spot of ground, near
the water, on which the carpenter traces the figure
of the bottom of the projected boat—not, it is true,
with mathematical accuracy, but still a line is used,
and a certain system followed. In the space thus
marked out, a number of rough branches are laid


PRIMITIVE BOAT-BUILDING.
85
in parallel lines, and others interlaced across them.
A kind of basket-work, of reeds and straw, is then
plaited through them, to fill up the interstices; and
some stronger branches, laid across at intervals of
eight or ten inches, give the requisite stability to
the bottom. The sides are then built up, which is
done by driving upright posts of the requisite height
through the edge of the platform, about a foot apart;
these are filled in, in the same way as the bottom,
and the whole is consolidated by placing strong
branches, or stems of small trees, as tie-beams, at
short intervals from gunwale to gunwale. The
necessary stability being thus obtained, the outside
of the boat is coated with hot bitumen, which is
melted over a fire made on the ground close at hand,
and reduced to proper consistency by an admixture
of sand and earth." This kind of boat draws only
six inches when empty, and twenty-two when
laden.
The bitumen pits of Hit seem as copious now as
in the days when they supplied the Babylonian
builders with the material of their cement. Sulphur
also is abundant, and there are numerous naphtha
springs, which make their way to the surface through
saline tepid water. They bear a high reputation


86
BELOW HIT.
among the natives for their extraordinary curative
properties.
Below Hit the river scenery loses in picturesque-
ness,—the graceful aqueducts and water-wheels
being replaced by large water-skins worked by
bullocks; the skins being carried up and down an
inclined plane to the river to give them increased
power. At Meshaid and Abu Serar the depth de-
creases to little more than six feet. The fields on
each bank are carefully cultivated, the labour falling
chiefly upon the women; and villages of tents or
clay-built wigwams occur at short intervals. Below
Felujah the river broadens and deepens, and its
banks exhibit a pleasing picture of activity and life.
Passing Iskanderiah, the voyagers arrived at the
town of Musseyib, where the Euphrates is spanned
by a bridge of boats. The depth is here fifteen feet,
and the average width one hundred and eighty
yards. Next they came in sight of the mounds of
Babylon, of the MujellebeTi and the Birs Nimrud,
and the ruins which still testify to the former great-
ness of the Chaldean capital. At Hillah there is
another floating bridge, and the stream flows on
with a full and tranquil current, through numerous
villages, surrounded by gardens and palm-groves.


LOWER COURSE OF THE RIVER.
87
At seventy-five and a half miles below Hillah,
Captain Chesney reached Diwanyah, whence he
descended to Old Lamlum, once the Chaldean Lake,
the point at which the river divides into two
branches.
On the principal branch, twenty-seven miles down,
is New Lamlum, a collection of reed-huts, which,
when the annual inundation rises very high, are
removed by their inhabitants to safer quarters. At
El-Kerayem the two branches reunite, and the
Euphrates assumes the character of a noble stream,
two hundred yards wide, studded with islands, and
reflecting in its waters the pillar-like trunks of the
date-palms which cluster around each little village.
At Kumeh, nearly one hundred and eighty miles
from Lamlum, the Euphrates receives the waters of
the Tigris, and the united stream acquires the name
of the Shatt-el-Arab, which flows on between villages
and palm-groves to Basrah, with a depth of twenty-
one feet and an average width of six hundred yards.
Captain Chesney here embarked in a fast-sailing
Persian boat, and followed the tidal waters of the
Shatt to its junction with the Persian Gulf.
We now come to the proceedings of the Govern-


88
THE TWO STEAMERS.
ment Expedition which Colonel Chesney led with
so much vigour and determination.
He was provided with two small steamers of
light draught, the Euphrates and the Tigris. These
were built in sections, and transported overland to
a point on the Euphrates, which, in compliment
to his royal patron, William IV., he named Port
William. The difficulties of transport were immense,
but these, as well as the opposition of the Turkish
authorities, the colonel's energy overcame. The
steamers were put together, launched, provisioned,
and duly equipped; and the expedition started on
its survey of the river in March 1836. The excite-
ment of the population, as, without sails or oars, the
vessels descended at the rate of thirteen or fourteen
knots an hour, was almost unbounded. They com-
pared their magical propulsion to the flight of an
arrow, driven through the water by a supernatural
power, "throwing one half of the river on this side,
the other on that." The Tigris was left behind at
first, and the survey effected by the Euphrates
alone; but after a short delay the former was got
ready, and the two steamers proceeded in company,
after passing the ruined castle of Kara Bambuge.
On April 19 they arrived at Beles; now a de-


A TREATY WITH ARAB CHIEFS.
89
cayed and desolate city, but in ancient times the
port of Aleppo. If the Euphrates line to India
should ever be opened up, no doubt it will recover
all its former importance. Here they were visited
by three Arab chiefs, with eight attendants, whom
they entertained and astonished by a nocturnal
display of rockets. A further impression was pro-
duced next day by firing some discharges of canister
shot from the nine-pounder guns with which the
two steamers were armed; and so convinced were
the chiefs of the enormous power of the English that
they gladly signed a treaty of peace between their
tribes, the Amza, and the Government of Great
Britain. We may surmise, however, that by this
time the treaty has been forgotten.
On the 6 th of May the expedition reached Jabir,
with its so-called Giant's Castle, its lofty minaret,
and Tel Marabout, or the Saint's Hill, in the back-
ground. These works are attributed by tradition
to Alexander the Great; while it is also said that
an Egyptian conqueror, named Ja'ber, constructed
the castle to support his invasion of Egypt. Its
dimensions are considerable, and it occupies a com-
manding position.
Continuing their descent they arrived at Hannan,


90
THE ANCIENT THAPSACUS.
the site of the ancient Thapsacus, which is generally
and rightly identified with the "Tiphsah" of the
Bible (1 Kings iv. 24). The most important passage
on the northern Euphrates, it was used by the
younger Cyrus, whose soldiers forded it, we are
told, with the water up to their breasts. Not long
afterwards, Darius crossed it to encounter Alexander
and his Greeks, recrossing all too quickly after his
crushing defeat at Issus. The conqueror also crossed
it in pursuit, on two bridges of boats, which were
joined together. Not far distant lie the ruins of
Susa, on a tributary of the Tigris; of Susa, the
Shushan of the Old Testament, one of the richest
and most powerful cities of the Elder World. It
was the chief treasury of the Persian empire; and
one of the capitals at which the Persian kings were
accustomed to spend a portion of the year. It was
at Susa that Alexander the Great was married to
Arsinoe; and out of its treasures that he made
enormous presents to his generals and soldiers. All
its glories are now represented by three lofty
mounds of ruins, measuring together three miles
and a half in circumference. Some excavations,
conducted by Sir W. F. Williams and Mr. Loftus,
a few years ago, disclosed the remains of a gigantic


"FATHER HALFPENNY."
91
colonnade, with a frontage of 343 feet, and a depth
of 244 feet, consisting of a central square of thirty-
six columns, flanked on the north, east, and west by
a similar number. Numerous inscriptions in the
cuneiform character have also been discovered,
testifying to the remote antiquity of some of the
buildings; while a later record, the only extant
memorial of Artaxerxes Mnemon, who defeated the
Greeks in the famous fight of Cunaxa, describes his
completion of a palace, begun by Darius, son of
Hystaspes, and dedicated to the goddesses Tanaitis
and Mithra. A monument in the neighbourhood,
evidently of Mohammedan origin, the natives have
dignified as the Tomb of Daniel.
Thirteen miles below Thapsacus, Colonel Chesney
came to Racca, which figures conspicuously in
Moslem history, and is associated with the memory
of the great khalif Haroun-al-Raschid, whose ruined
palace may still be traced. It was also a residence
of the khalif El-Mansour, a name justly celebrated in
connection with astronomical science. His love of
learning, however, did not prevent him from being
a victim to a love of money; and his notorious
avarice procured him the sobriquet of Abu Dawanek,
or "Father Halfpenny."


92
A NARROW ESCAPE.
While lying off Amram, Colonel Chesney and
one of his officers, Mr. Ainsworth, went ashore to
explore some ruins. They had gone but a short
distance when eight Arabs, each armed with a spear
and a long gun, favoured them with their company.
Their suspicions being aroused, Chesney and Ains-
worth took the precaution of separating from each
other; Ainsworth keeping at such a distance as
would enable him to render assistance when needed.
While they moved on thus cautiously, Chesney
suddenly saw an unexpected enemy in front of
them; a cobra-capella just rising on its tail, and
preparing to strike Ainsworth with its fangs. It
would probably have succeeded, but that one of the
Arabs, with wonderful accuracy of aim, darted the
point of his spear through the creature's head.
Thereby a twofold result was gained. Ainsworth
was rescued from a serious danger; and a friendly
understanding was established with the Arab, whose
tent and those of his companions the Englishmen
proceeded to visit.
Next day, the descent of the river was resumed.
The width continued to vary from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred yards. The landscapes were


A ROMANTIC PASS.
93
agreeable, bounded on the right by a range of green
hills, and on the left by a magnificent forest, in the
shades of which innumerable nightingales poured
forth their unequalled melodies.
"After steaming," says Chesney, "about forty-
five miles, we stopped under the left bank, where
we met the large tribe of Affudell Arabs, fully two
thousand strong, who crowded the river-banks at
first, but retired as we came near. On receiving
from us reiterated assurances of friendship, they
took courage and returned, and came quite close to
the vessels. They were all armed with very short
muskets and spears, and had also short swords:
they made an urgent but of course ineffectual appeal
to us for assistance against their enemies on the
opposite side of the river. Having obtained another
good supply of wood, we steamed rapidly towards
what would have appeared to be a mountain barrier,
if it had not been evident that the boats had found
a passage through it, which we followed, our wonder
increasing as we advanced. It seemed as if we had
entered one of Nature's grandest works. On each
side of the river, perpendicular cliffs rise to a height
varying from three hundred to five hundred feet:
the Euphrates has here, for the third time during


94
THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA.
its course from Bir to the ocean, found its way
through a mountain barrier, and had brought us to
the so-called "beetle-browed" precipice described by
the old Italian voyager Gasparo Balbi.
The next point of interest was Zelebi, where
moulder the remains of the summer palace of
Zenobia, the great Queen of Palmyra. It is impos-
Bible to gaze without emotion on the scenes associated
with the memory of this remarkable woman. Modern
Europe has had its heroines; but, as Gibbon says,
Zenobia is the only female whose superior genius
broke through the servile indolence imposed on her
sex by Asiatic customs. But she was scarcely less
famous for her beauty than for her heroism. She
was of a dark complexion; her teeth were white as
pearls; her large black eyes sparkled with fire,
tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her
voice was harmonious—an excellent thing in women.
Intellectually, she was also above the standard of
her sex; and a mind naturally powerful was
strengthened and adorned by study. She was thus
fitted to control the destinies of a great empire,
which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers
of Bithynia. It was her misfortune, however, to
come into collision with imperial Rome; whose


on
STORM ON THE RIVER.
across the river on his expedition into Lower
Mesopotamia.
To the south of Ma'den is situated, on the crest of
a lonely hill, the extensive castle of Rahabah, the
Rehoboth of the Ammonites. From Ma'den the two
British steamers descended to Salahyah; and between
Salahyah and Anna were overtaken by a terrific
storm, which proved disastrous to the little Tigris.
The catastrophe must be described in the words of
one of Colonel Chesney's followers :—
"A squall was observed on the right hand, which
it was thought would not reach us; but just as we
were going through the rocky passage of Is-Geria,—
which, however, we did not see, as there were three
feet of water over the rocks,—the squall was observed
coming in our direction from the west-south-west,
with great rapidity, and looking like a large cloud
of black mud. As soon as the rocks were passed,
the Tigris made signal to pick up our berth, and
she rounded by us to the left bank. As our broad-
side came to the stream, we were taken with the
violence of the hurricane, which made us heel con-
siderably; but being too near the Tigris, it became
necessary to back our paddles, to avoid a fatal
collision. It was blowing tremendously, and the


WRECK OF THE "TIGRIS."
97
air so thick with sand that we could scarcely
see. On our bow touching the bank, Charlewood
and a number of the crew jumped on shore, and
by the greatest exertions got an anchor out, which,
with the full power of steam, held her till two
chain-cables were got out, and secured by means of
jumpers driven into the ground; but with all this
she dragged, and would have gone down at her
anchor, had the storm continued, for the waves were
then four feet above the bank of the river. When
at its height, we saw the poor Tigris fall off from
the shore, and drift past us at a fearful rate, broad-
side to the wind, and heeling over considerably.
She soon disappeared in the cloud of sand; but on
looking astern, soon after, I saw her in a sinking
state, with her bow already under water,—in fact
going down, and it is believed that on reaching the
bottom she turned keel upwards."
Colonel Chesney himself was on board the Tigris,
and says that she had barely cleared the rocks of
Is-Geria when the hurricane increased in fury. In
order to bring up under the shelter of the high
bank, she rounded to, at which moment two men
were stationed at the bow, each with an anchor,
ready to leap ashore. But just as the steamer
(608) 7


98
A COLLISION AVERTED.
struck the bank with some violence, the storm drove
her back with so sudden a recoil, that only one of
the men effected a jump before she was driven head-
long by the desert whirlwind, which soon laid her
on her beam-ends. By means of an anchor and the
use of the engine, her officers hoped to bring her
head to the wind, but were disappointed in their
expectation, the raging waves breaking over the
deck and through the port-holes, and extinguishing
the fires; so that, with her broadside to the wind,
she drifted, a helpless log, towards her consort
What seemed an inevitable, and would certainly to
both vessels have been a fatal, collision, was pre-
vented by the presence of mind of Lieutenant
Charlewood, who, not without much danger to his
own crew, backed his vessel, so that the Tigris
might pass downwards; after which both steamers
were instantly lost to sight of each other in the in-
tense darkness of this disastrous day.
Lieutenant Lynch now reported that the unfor-
tunate Tigris was sinking, and "Sauve qui
peut" became the general concern. But in less
than a minute she was going to the bottom, with
eveiy officer and man on board at his proper post.
Already the deck was under water, when a tran-


100
XENOPHON AND HIS GREEKS.
army, suffered severely from a similar tempest, in
the course of his descent towards Mesopotamia
The country which they traversed, says Gibbon,
from the Chabur to the cultivated lands of Assyria,
may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia,
a dry and barren waste, which all the arts of human
industry could not render productive. Julian
marched over the same ground which had been
trodden above seven hundred years before by the
footsteps of the younger Cyrus; through a country
described by one of the companions of his expedi-
tion, the sage and heroic Xenophon, as a plain
throughout, level as the sea, and full of wormwood.
What other kind of shrubs or reeds grew there had
all an aromatic smell; but no trees could be seen.
Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses,
appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert;
and the fatigues of the march were alleviated by
the amusements of the chase. Of the same tract
of country Mr. Layard writes:—To the Chabur
were transported the captive children of Israel
Around Arban may have been pitched the tents of
the sorrowing Jews, as those of the Arabs were
during my visit. To the same pastures they led
their sheep, and they drank of the same waters.


DESOLATION OF THE CHABUR.
101
Then, the banks of the river were covered with
towns and villages, and a palace temple stood upon
the mound, reflected in the transparent stream. But
the "common lot" has long since called away the
busy crowds which thronged the banks of the river.
From its mouth to its source, from Carchernish to
Ras-al-Din, there is now no single permanent human
habitation on the Chabur. Its rich meadows and
its deserted ruins have alike become the encamping
places of the wandering Arabs.
During Julian's march the loose desert sands
were frequently swept up in destructive clouds by
sudden storms; and on one occasion a great number
of the Roman soldiers, with their tents, were thrown
to the ground by the violence of an unexpected
hurricane, and one thousand of the Roman galleys
perished in the tempest-tossed river.
On the 26th of May, Colonel Chesney, who had
embarked on board the Euphrates, reached Anna,
the ancient Anatko, a town we have already de-
scribed. On the 31st, the descent of the river
was resumed, and the steamer sped along that extra-
ordinary bend, or convolution, to which the attention
of the reader has been directed iu a preceding page.


ONWARD AND ONWARD.
103
and plantations of fig, mulberry, and pomegranate
trees on either hand. At New Lanilum, a town of
portable reed huts, already described, the river does
not exceed one hundred to one hundred and fifty
yards in width. The banks are here inhabited by
a Persian sect, the Shiahs, famed for their pilfering
propensities.
Below Lamlum the Euphrates spreads through
a marshy country in several channels. Colonel
Chesney took the deeper and more navigable, and
passed in succession some considerable castles. At
Kerayim the various branches of the great river
reunite; and to the marshy level succeeds an un-
dulating and pleasant country. With a deep wide
stream the river flows on to El-Khudr and its
poplar groves; where a slight collision occurred be-
tween the British expedition and the Arabs. The
latter, however, after the guns of the steamer had
fired a couple of broadsides, came to the conclusion
that discretion was the better part of valour, and
took to flight.
Eight miles below Kut-el-Amrah, with its splendid
woods of pomegranate and date trees, and seventy-
five miles below El-Khudr, stands Sheikh-el-
Shuyukh, the commercial capital and largest settle-


10)
COMPLETION OF THE EXPEDITION.
ment of the Arabs on the Euphrates. It is described
by Chesney as containing some fifteen hundred clay-
built houses, and as many tents, which repose in
the pleasant shadow of the vine, the fig, the pome-
granate, and the rose.
Next day the steamer accomplished another
seventy-five miles, and conveyed the expedition to
Kurnah, a town celebrated for the superior quality
of its dates, and situated at the junction of the
Euphrates and the Kariin. Thus, the descent and
survey of 1153 miles of the great Mesopotamian
river were completed; and nothing remained for
Colonel Chesney and his companions but to follow,
as far as Basrah, the joint estuary of the Euphrates
and the Tigris, which here takes the name of the
Shatt-el-Arab, and is wide enough and deep enough
for the passage of ordinary men-of-war. This portion
of their enterprise was speedily and safely accom-
plished; for Basrah is only forty-three miles below
Kurnah.
Afterwards the steamer crossed the Persian Gulf
to Bushire, where she refitted, was reprovisioned,
and took a fresh crew on board. Then she recrossed
the Gulf, steamed up the Euphrates to Kurnah, and
thence commenced the ascent of the Tigris.


A DOUBLE RIVER-SYSTEM.
105
But here we must take leave for the present of
Colonel Chesney, and proceed to examine the course
of the Tigris, and the ruins of the great cities on its
banks, as well as to collect the memorable associa-
tions that have rendered it scarcely less an object of
attraction and interest than the Euphrates itself, in
connection with which it forms one of those double-
river systems, like that of the Ganges and the
Brahmaputra, so peculiarly characteristic of the
hydrography of Asia. In history, as in physical
geography, the two rivers are closely allied, and their
valleys have usually been united under the same
imperial rule. Who shall decide between them as
to relative importance or interest? If the Euphrates
had its Babylon, the Tigris had its Nineveh.


PART II.
% h c i g x i a.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
CCORDING to Pliny, this celebrated river,
in the upper part of its course, where its
current flowed equably and tranquilly,
was called Diglito; lower down, where it moved
with greater swiftness, it bore the name of Tigris,
which, in the Median language, signified an arrow.
These appellations it still retains, "Diglito" having
been slightly modified into Daghell, Dadsckla, or
Didschle.
The two principal sources of the Tigris rise on the
southern slope of the Anti-Taurus, at a distance of
not more than fifteen miles south of those of the
Euphrates. Uniting in a single stream, it flows for
about one hundred and fifty miles first in a north-





COURSE OF THE TIGRIS.
109
easterly, then in a southerly, and afterwards in an
easterly direction, until it receives its eastern arm.
Its main course is afterwards south-easterly, and it
passes Diarbekir, Mosul, and Bagdad, before it reaches
its point of confluence with the Euphrates at Kurnah
or Korna (in lat. 31° N., and long. 47° 15' K). At
Bagdad it approaches within thirty miles of its sister-
river, and flows in a nearly parallel line for about
eighty miles, when it diverges, and recedes a dis-
tance of seventy to one hundred miles, until it
arrives at Kurnah.
The scenery of the river is, on the whole, well
diversified and highly picturesque. Its banks are
scantily inhabited, however, and the surrounding
country is but imperfectly cultivated. The pasture-
lands are rich, and attract the nomades of Meso-
potamia Between Mosul and Tekrit agriculture
seems to flourish; but from Tekrit southward a
wilderness prevails, which loses its savage character
only within the neighbourhood of Bagdad. Between
Bagdad and Kurnah the thickets are dense and over-
grown, and lions and other beasts of prey are
unpleasantly numerous. Like the Euphrates, the
Tigris is in flood for a part of the year, beginning
to rise in November, and reaching a maximum in


110
TOMB OF EZRA.
the middle of May. Its velocity is then upwards of
7.33 feet per second, and the volume of water it dis-
charges at Bagdad equals 164,103 cubic feet.
The average width of the Tigris from between
Mosul and Bagdad is two hundred yards, and the
ordinary speed of its current four and a quarter miles
per hour. At certain seasons of the year rafts ascend
from Diarbekir to Mosul, a distance of about two
hundred and ninety-six miles. From Mosul to
Bagdad it is navigable all the year round for boats
of light draught.
Beginning our exploration of the river at Kurnah,
we pass the so-called Tomb of Ezra; the Nehar-
Samorah of Benjamin of Tudela, and the Zamusa of
the Talmudists, of which we read :—" The sepulchre
of Ezra the priest and scribe is in this place, where he
died on his journey from Jerusalem to the court of
King Artaxerxes." The river is here two hundred
yards wide, with an average depth of from twelve
to thirty-six feet, and the banks are well wooded.
We pass Bistow, seventy-one miles above Kurnah;
and Ras-al-Kheyran, sixty-eight miles above Bistow.
The river broadens as we ascend to Kut-el-Amrah
(fifty-four miles), situated opposite to the embouchure





f
114 HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS.
Seleucia. This city, founded by Seleucus Nicator
on the right bank of the Tigris, was for some gene-
rations the capital of the kingdom inherited by that
lieutenant of Alexander from his glorious master.
Khosroes the Great, whom the Persians call Khosro
and Noushirvan, or "the Just," when he captured
Seleucia, established himself there so securely that
he found the time and the means to undertake some
architectural works on a scale of great magnificence.
From the masses of ruin which extend along the
west bank of the Tigris, it would seem that the site
where Seleucia then flourished particularly attracted
his attention. But in accordance with an Asiatic
custom, and from a jealous reluctance to attach his
name to a city which did not owe to him its origin,
he built on the opposite bank a new city, known as
Ctesiphon or Mad'en. As it was made the seat of
government, as well as the residence of the sove-
reign, naturally the population of the ancient and
decayed city migrated to the new. Seleucia, thus
abandoned, soon fell into decay; and its ruins, gradu-
ally diminishing, eventually left no other traces than
piles of masonry covered by the sands of the desert,
and mounds of earth thickly overgrown with bushes
and brushwood.





118
AN ANCIENT TRADITION.
ologist. In examining the monuments of antiquity
we are often compelled to indulge in vague conjec-
tures, and in the present case we ask ourselves,
What object were these tubes intended to serve?
The only answer it is now possible to offer is, that
they were intended to promote a free circulation of
air, an urgent necessity in the burning climate of
Mesopotamia From some fragments still extant it
would seem that the cross-beams employed to con-
nect the arch with the walls of the facade were of
cypress wood or cedar. And it is therefore allow-
able to suppose that these trees then flourished in
the surrounding country, the barren soil of which
now yields only some meagre brushwood, calcined
by the sun every summer.
The historic tradition having faded in the course
of centuries, the great Khosroes has been replaced in
the mind of the common people by a vulgar enough
personage, a certain Soliman-Pak, Mohammed's
barber. A small mausoleum with a white cupola,
shaded by a palm-tree, has been raised in his honour,
and is frequented by numerous pilgrims. This
barber of the prophet's has completely replaced, so
far as the Mohammedans are concerned, the con-


ASCENDING THE RIVER.
119
queror of Belisarius, and the name of Tak-i-Khosro
has been effaced by that of Soliman-Pak.
From Ctesiphon we ascend the river to Bagdad.
Nothing of interest occurs between the two points,
and the intervening scenery is neither beautiful nor
sublime.


CHAPTER II.

BAGDAD.
AGDAD is the chief town of a Turkish
pashalik of the same name, which is
bounded by the pashaliks of Diarbekir
and Van on the north; by Syria and Arabia on the
west and south; and on the east by Persia. On
the south-east it touches the Persian Gulf. It is
generally divided into three parts; that east of the
Tigris, comprising the districts of Kurdistan and
Khuzistan; the barren wilderness west of the Euph-
rates; and the region between the two rivers, the
northern portion of which, the ancient Mesopotamia,
is now known as Algesirah, or "the Island," and
the southern, the ancient Babylonia and Chaldea, as
Irak-Arabi.
Bagdad, the famous city, which figures so largely
in the narratives of the early travellers, and formerly


122
A PICTURE FROM TENNYSON.
lished with the utmost splendour that Oriental taste
could devise. It was in his reign that the city
attained the degree of wealth and magnificence
which has made it famous in so many legends;
and some idea of which may still be obtained from
the stories of the "Arabian Nights." In reading
these enchanted pages we fill our minds with dreams
of a brilliant past, such as Tennyson has embodied
in one of his earlier poems :—
"When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken Bail of infancy,
The tide of time flowed back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
"Anight my shallop, rustling through
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:
By garden-porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering through lamplight dim,
And broidered sofas on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.


THE KHALIF S PALACE.
123
"Often, where clear-stemmed platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-head down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moon-lit sward
Was damask-work, and deep inlay
Of braided blooms unmown, which crept
Adown to where the water slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid."
The poet's fancy may somewhat exaggerate the
colouring of the picture, which diners widely, indeed,
from the present aspect of Bagdad, with its narrow
and squalid streets, and grim-fronted houses, but in
the main its truth is confirmed by the reports of
early travellers. We must find room for the de-
scription of the khalif's Palace :—■
"With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
"The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers looked to shame


124
SIEGES OF BAGDAD.
The hollow-vaulted dark, and streamed
Upon the mooned domes aloof •
In inmost Bagdat, till there seemed
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid."
In the tenth century, Bagdad was captured and
devastated by the Turks. In 1253, the last de-
scendant of the Arabian khalifs was deposed by
Halaku, grandson of the Tartar conqueror Genghis
Khan; whose dynasty, in turn, was overthrown by
the celebrated Timur in 1393. Early in the N
sixteenth century it was taken by the Persians,
under Shah Ismael; but their occupation was
repeatedly disputed by the Turks. In 1638 it
maintained a gallant but unavailing defence against
the forces of Sultan Murad IV. ; and since that time
it has remained in the possession of the Turks, who
have done nothing to develop the undeniable advan-
tages of its position.
The following account of Bagdad is based on the
narratives of Flandin and other recent writers.
It is a city which never fails to excite the
curiosity of the intelligent traveller; monuments,
inhabitants, costumes, social usages,—necessarily,


FACT AND FANCY.
125
all are interesting in a city so much celebrated by
tradition, and a city which, in the eyes of the
European, has even' now the prestige of the un-
known, situated as it is out of the main highways
of modern commerce. The Arab life has a physiog-
nomy of its own; and the citizens of Bagdad, as
well as the Bedaween of the Desert, have a peculiar
character, whose signs are obvious in all things.
Before visiting it, the traveller pictures to himself
this city as still full of memorials of the palmy time
when the power of the khalifs covered it with glory.
He expects to see, at every step, the remains of the
marvels of that celebrated era of Islam, and he
retains recollections of the wondrous romances with
which Scheherazade occupied the "Thousand and
One Nights." But, alas! Bagdad has lost its past.
A dense layer of sand buries the foundations of
edifices once associated with Haroun-al-Raschid and
Zobeide. Here and there, in the obscure corners
of the bazaars, on the bank of the Tigris, and in the
midst of nameless ruins, may be discovered a few
mural panels, on which are barely legible the
fragments of Cufic inscriptions; or a minaret, the
ancient origin of which is attested by its shattered
condition; and some wrecks of enamelled facades,


ITS WALLS AND BASTIONS.
127
He must content himself with the modern city,
with its modern mosques, with its arts and manu-
factures, which are analogous to those of Persia.
He will find sufficient food to satisfy his curiosity,
if not to excite his admiration. The swift full river,
the cloudless sky of Mesopotamia, which reflects its
brilliant azure on the enamelled cupolas, the mosques,
the picturesque bazaars, the motley affluence of
nearly all the nations of the East, still offer so many
attractive pictures, that of Bagdad it may truly be
said that "once seen, it can never be forgotten."
Bagdad has the appearance of a great city; and,
from afar, its minarets distinguish its place in the
immense desert which surrounds it, in which it
glitters like an oasis. On the east it is enclosed
by a girdle of walls in tolerably good condition,
strengthened by some bastions, and defended by a
fosse which is easily filled with the waters of the
Tigris. This enclosure, at either end, abuts on the
bank of the river, which bathes the western portion
of the city. It is on this side that Bagdad looks
most charming. The palace of the pasha, the
mosques, the cafe's, the houses, and the gardens,
mirrored in the glassy stream, form a splendid


128
THE GREAT SQUARE.
panorama. Behind the line of houses and buildings
at the foot of which flows the Tigris, are grouped
the various quarters of the city, traversed by a
net-work of narrow streets.
The most beautiful of the many mosques is that
of the Maidan, or Achmet-Khiaia; it is coated all
over with enamelled bricks, which form graceful
arabesques of the most vivid colours. It dominates
a great square, or Maidan, on which open numerous
cafes, shops, and caravanserais. Every morning this
area is thronged with the Arab venders of lemons,
water-melons, fowls, and other articles. It is also the
place of arrival and departure for the caravans of the
North; their numerous camels and mules are here
unloaded of their heavy burdens, while waiting for
those which they will convey to Asia Minor. Near
at hand is the gate Bab-el-Khadem, by the side of
which stands another but smaller mosque, with an
ogival doorway ornamented by designs in relief,
composed of small bricks so arranged as to form
peculiarly graceful embroideries.
That part of the town comprehended between the
Tigris and the wall is very large; but it will be
long before it is entirely covered with houses. To
the east and south considerable areas are encumbered


THE ARAB AND PERSIAN QUARTER. 129
with ruins, or abandoned as pasture-land to the
camels. In the middle rises the tomb of a sheikh;
a small monument surmounted by a pyramid or
cone, each side of which is ornamented with fluted
facets. Attached to it is a garden enclosed within
crenellated walls, and green with the foliage of trees
and the feathery crests of palms. Round about are
scattered numerous modest tombs, scarcely rising
above the surface of the soil.
Opposite that quarter of the town built on the
left bank of the river is situated another, less con-
siderable, and yet of sufficient importance to pass for
a second town; and this all the more readily, inas-
much as its population has a character of its own.
It is inhabited almost exclusively by Arabs of the
desert, who reside there temporarily; and by Persians,
who prefer it as a place of sojourn to the city proper.
They have been induced, indeed, to fix upon it by
the religious animosity and difference of creed which
exist between them and the Sunnite Mohammedans.
They are more sheltered there from the annoyances
of the people of Bagdad; and are more at liberty to
make their pilgrimages to Kerbelah, one of their
sacred places.
(608) 9


130
THE BRIDGE OF BOATS.
Between the two quarters extends a long bridge
of boats, over which passes an incessant stream of
Bedaween caravans, horsemen, loaded camels, and
flocks of sheep intended for the food supply of Bag-
dad. At each end of the bridge stands a cafe", with
an open gallery, where the Bagdadites refresh them-
selves at their leisure, sipping their delicious Mocha
coffee, or smoking in elegant narghilehs the best
tobacco of the East. From these galleries the view
embraces the opposite bank, where Bagdad accumu-
lates its busy life; and its graceful cupolas and brill-
iant-coloured minarets, intermingled here and there
with beautiful clusters of palm trees, sparkle under
a pure and radiant sky. Along the quay are moored
several large barks or bagales, with immense yards,
waiting to take on board their cargoes before dropping
down to Bassorah and the Persian Gulf. Sometimes
a large raft, piloted by a single man, with a small
hut upon it, constructed of reeds and branches, drifts
slowly down the current. It is made up of timber
from the mountains of Kurdistan, and on its voyage
has traversed one hundred and fifty leagues, allowing
for the sinuous course of the Tigris. In this way is
Bagdad supplied with fuel. The Kurds, who carry
on this branch of trade, fasten a great number of








BUILDINGS OF BAGDAD.
133
goat-skin bladders to their rafts, in order to insure
their floating qualities. On reaching their destina-
tion they remove the bladders, exhaust the air, pack
them up into a small compass, and place them on the
back of an ass, to return to their original starting-
point, and recommence their not unprofitable in-
dustry.
All the buildings of Bagdad, both public and pri-
vate, are constructed of furnace-burnt bricks. They
are small of size, and of a yellowish red colour. The
streets are unpaved, and their sides generally present
the monotonous appearance of blank walls, as the
entrance doors are small and mean, and windows
rarely open on the public thoroughfare. Mr. Buck-
ingham speaks of the Serai, or Palace of the Pasha,
as an extensive rather than a grand edifice. It is
situated in the north-west quarter of the town, not
far from the banks of the Tigris. The most ancient
of the mosques is the "Tamah el Sookh el Gazel,"
or the mosque of the Cotton Thread Market,—so
named from its locality. Of the original building,
however, nothing more remains than the minaret
and a small portion of the outer walls. "The for-
mer of these is a short, thick, heavy column of the


134
THE GREAT MOSQUE.
most graceless proportions, built of bricks, diagonally
crossed and varied in colours, as in the minaret of
the great mosque at Mosul. The spring of the pro-
jection for the gallery, from whence the invitation
to prayer is repeated, commences even below the
centre of the column, and goes up in a series of
pointed arched niches, dropping ornaments like
stalactites, till it reaches about two-thirds the height
of the shaft, gradually swelling outward, and ter-
minating in the gallery before mentioned. The piece
of the column above this is short, and terminated
by a roundish summit; the whole is much inferior
to the Turkish minarets of Syria, and still more so
to the light and elegant ones seen in many parts of
Egypt. The exterior surface of this minaret bears
also marks of violence; but sufficient of it remains
to show that some parts of it were highly orna-
mented with the fanciful sculptures of arabesque
work; and an inscription recorded by Niebuhr states
it to have been erected by the khalif Mostanser, in
the year of the Hegira 633, or 1235 A.D.,—about
fourteen years after the date of a tower seen in the
outer wall of the city."
On the left bank of the Tigris, and near the Per-








zobeide's tomb.
137
sian quarter, four graceful enamelled minarets, among
which rise two cupolas equally bright with mosaic
-and arabesques, may be seen in the midst of the
palm trees. These belong to a grand mosque, round
which are grouped the houses of a village almost
entirely inhabited by mollahs or priests, and by pil-
grims who resort thither for devotional purposes.
This monument is known as the Malchid-Imam-
Moussa, or "Mosque of the Imam Moussa."
A short distance beyond, in the uncultivated
plain which already wears the aspect of the desert,
are several tombs, with a conical upper story. The
largest enshrines the dust of Zobeide, the beautiful
and powerful wife of the khalif Haroun-al-Raschid,
whose personal graces procured her the merited
designation of the "Flower of Ladies." Her lonely
mausoleum, however, is sadly neglected. If a few
lettered Arabs remember that this princess was one
of the glories of Bagdad, and that her fame extended
even into Persia, the vulgar appear ignorant even
of the fact that the soil of this country preserves her
remains. Along both banks of the Shatt-el-Arab
extend immense gardens and forests of date-palms,
which are cultivated with peculiar care. For these
trees are of great value to the natives, whom they


ITS ADMIRABLE POSITION.
139
of which it is the theatre, it is enough to say that
there are sixty European houses in the city, repre-
senting England, France, Holland, Italy, and other
countries.
Moreover, the position of this ancient and cele-
brated city, on a great navigable river which flows
into the Indian Ocean, or at least communicates
directly with it; its situation at the extremity of
the Turkish empire, and near the frontier of our
Indian dominions, on the borders of Persia and on
those of Arabia, give it an incontestable importance
as a centre of political action. Further, it is planted
in the heart of a territory of almost incalculable
fertility, which needs only an enlightened govern-
ment to develop its resources. From the Karduk
Mountains to the shore of the Persian Gulf, from the
chain of the Zagros to the Euphrates, spreads a vast
country, watered by several rivers, traversed by
ancient canals which have fallen into desuetude since
the days of the Romans; everywhere the generous
soil calls for culture and a numerous and industrious
population; asks but for stalwart arms and modern
agricultural science to yield a wealth equal to that
of India or Arabia Felix. Abundant crops of indigo,


142
THE ASSYRIAN KINGS.
Nimrud," and was supposed to have been first
peopled by a colony from Babylon.
So far as can be determined from the vague his-
torical records which have descended to us, Babylon
and Nineveh always formed two distinct, though
not always two separate, states. There is every
reason to believe, from the monuments discovered
by Botta, Layard, and George Smith, that in very
early times the kings of Babylonia ruled over
Assyria; but at a later date those of Assyria ruled
over Babylonia. As to the Assyrian monarchs, they
are at the outset mere shadows, the phantoms of
historical tradition. We have already alluded to
Ninus, who extended his conquests, it is said, to
Bactria in one direction, and in the other to the
Mediterranean. We read also of Semiramis, the
great warrior-queen, than whom, perhaps, no figure
bulks more conspicuously among old Asiatic legends.
Her supremacy extended even into India and
Ethiopia. She aggrandized Babylon; she covered
Asia with opulent cities and splendid monuments.
In Media and Assyria it was customary for the
people to connect her name with every ancient
memorial which astonished by its grandeur. Such
was the case with the ramparts of Babylon and its


REIGN OF SARDANAPALUS.
143
Hanging Gardens, the Temple of Bel, and Tomb of
Ninus, raised at the gate of Nineveh on an arti-
ficial mound of prodigious dimensions. She divided
the supremacy of the Asiatic imagination with
Nebuchadnezzar.
Another celebrated name is that of Sardanapalus,
which has come down to us as the emblem of an
effeminate life, wasted upon enervating luxuries and
the refinements of vice. An epitaph attributed to
his own hand enumerates in cynical terms the
material enjoyments of the world, and represents
them as the summum bonum of human existence.
According to tradition, he was the last king of his
dynasty. The rulers or tributary princes of the
conquered states,—the king of Bactria, Arbaces,
governor of Media, and Belesis, viceroy of Babylon,—
joined in a conspiracy against a sovereign whose
indolence and debauchery had rendered him contemp-
tible. Nineveh was unable to resist the forces of so
formidable a coalition; and as the hostile soldiers
burst into the city, Sardanapalus, with a last touch
of heroism, accumulated all that he held most precious
on a funeral pyre, which he lighted himself, and
then leaped into the flames. The reader will re-
member the fine use which Byron has made of this


144
HIS ROMANTIC STORY.
romantic story, elevating his subject by making the
Assyrian king capable of a true affection for a noble
Greek slave, Myrrha. The pyre is ready, and sov-
ereign and slave are exchanging their last farewells:—
Sar. One last embrace.
Myr. Embrace, but not the last; there is one more.
Sar. True, the commingling fire will mix our ashes.
Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, shall they,
Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion,
Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.
Sar. Say it.
Myr. It is that no kind hand will gather
The dust of both into one urn.
Sar. The better:
Rather let them be borne abroad upon
The winds of heaven, and scattered into air,
Than be polluted more by human hands
Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace,
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin,
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt
Hath piled in her brick mountains
Adieu, Assyria!
I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land,
And better as my country than my kingdom.
I sated thee with peace and joys; and this
Is my reward ! and now I owe thee nothing,
Not even a grave. [He mounts the pile.
Now, Myrrha!
Myr. Art thou ready?
Sar. As the torch in thy grasp!
Myr. 'Tis fired! I come." *
* The inscription, attributed to Sardanapalus, was found according to Arrian,
at Anchialus, and ran as follows:—"Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in
one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play; all other human
joys are not worth a fillip." But the whole story ia exceedingly doubtful.


146 DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH.
the limit which Nature herself seems to have erected
between the Semitic and Iranian races, and strike
a blow for empire in Upper Asia, it proved their
ruin. Media had grown into a powerful kingdom;
and its sovereign, whom the Greeks name Cyaxares,
assuming in his turn the offensive, invaded Assyria,
laid siege to Nineveh, carried it by assault, swept it
with fire and sword, and reduced the splendid city,
one of the glories of Asia, to hideous ruin. Its
inhabitants were destroyed, scattered abroad, or
carried into captivity. It never rose again from
the ground. So complete was the catastrophe, that
men lost all recollection of the very site of Nineveh.
Herodotus must have passed over it, and Xenophon,
with his ten thousand Greeks, encamped in the
immediate vicinity; but to neither of these exact
and intelligent observers was it known. Alexander
the Great won the victory of Arbela almost in sight
of its ruins; yet neither he nor any of his followers
remembered that they were those of the once famous
Nineveh. In the Roman period a small fortified
tower or castle occupied some portion of the site,
which appears to have revived the traditional name
of Nineve. After the Arab conquest, a fort on the
east bank of the Tigris was called Ninawi. Then


MOUNDS AND MEMORIALS.
147
a cloud once more settled upon the ruined solitude.
The prophecies of Nahum had been fulfilled.
Until within the last half century the ruins
occupying the traditional site of Nineveh consisted
apparently of mounds of earth and rubbish; which,
unlike the masses of brick masonry at Babylon,
gave no indications of artificial construction, except,
perhaps, a few traces of a wall of sun-dried bricks.
Some of these mounds were of surprising magnitude,
and might have been mistaken for natural eleva-
tions, but for the innumerable fragments of pot-
tery scattered around them. On some, the scanty
population of the country had planted villages; on
others, small mud-built forts; others waved with
crops of wheat or barley. In the Arab tongue they
were called Tel, in the Turkish Teppeh; in either
case, the word signifying a hill or an artificial eleva-
tion. So numerous are they in the region to the
east of the Tigris, that archaeologists have found it
difficult to determine which are really to be con-
sidered as having been comprised within the boun-
daries of ancient Nineveh. The northern boundary
of the chief aggregation is now fixed at Shereef-Khan,
and the southern at Nimrud, about six and a half


148
THE MAIN GROUPS.
miles from the junction of the Tigris with the Zab
(the ancient Lycus). The eastern points are Khor-
sabad, ten miles north-east of Shereef-Khan, and
Karamless, fifteen miles north-east of Nimrud. We
have thus an irregular quadrangular area, which
is covered with memorials of the ancient life. But
these may be distinguished into five or six main
groups, the remains of strongholds or enclosures,
formerly defended by walls, ditches, and towers:
namely,—1. The group immediately opposite the
modern town of Mosul, including the great mounds
of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunnus; 2. The mounds
of Nimrud and Athur, near the confluence of the
Tigris and the Zab; 3. Khorsabad, about ten miles
to the east of the Tigris; 4. Shereef-Khan, about
five and a half miles to the north of Kouyunjik;
and 5. Selamiyah, three miles to the north of Nim-
rud.
No attempt was made to excavate any of these
mounds until 1820, when Mr. Rich, the British
consul at Bagdad, visited them and made a collection
of stones and of bricks bearing cuneiform inscriptions,
which he sent to the British Museum, where they
formed the first nucleus of its famous Assyrian
gallery, afterwards so greatly enriched by Mr.








botta's explorations.
151
Austen Layard, and, more recently, by the late Mr.
George Smith.
Mr. Rich's discoveries aroused the curiosity of
M. Botta, whom the French Government had
appointed to the consulate at Mosul in 1842; and,
at the expense of a French scientific society, he began
a series of researches. At first, his efforts were
directed to the mound of Kouyunjik: they produced
but little result; and he then, at the suggestion of
a native, set his men to dig at the village of Khorsa-
bad. A large mound, partly covered by the village-
huts, revealed an ancient site. A cutting was
effected on its declivity, and after a few hours'
labour, the pick-axes of the workmen laid bare the
angle of a wall; then a second wall; then a third;
afterwards, three halls or chambers, the walls of
which were covered with sculptures and inscriptions,
hunting scenes, war scenes, religious scenes, and
colossal symbolic figures; forming part of a spacious
and magnificent palace, a truly royal residence.
That it had been destroyed by fire was clear from
the carbonized beams, and the panels of the walls,
all blackened or calcined. The furious character of
the. war which overthrew the last Assyrian dynasty
had left everywhere its traces.





LAYARD S EXCAVATIONS.
155
embassy) he interested several gentlemen in his
projects, and supplied by them with the necessary
funds, he hastened, in 1845, to return to Mosul.
His preparations were soon completed, and hav-
ing engaged the services of a body of workmen, he
commenced his excavations, which quickly yielded
an abundant crop of treasures. Portions of walls
uncovered at the outset, showed by the grandeur
and beauty of their sculptures that they had
belonged to a royal residence. As at Khorsabad,
the traces of a destructive conflagration were every-
where; but, fortunately, an immense number of
valuable objects had escaped destruction . Every
hour brought forth new bas-reliefs, new inscriptions.
The mural sculptures, as in the case of the Egyptian
monuments, represented the campaigns of the prince
who had built the palace; while the inscriptions
recorded their history, and enumerated the kings,
and towns, and countries that had been subjugated.
Winged bulls with a human face, and of colossal
proportions, guarded the principal entrance of the
palace. On one occasion the Arabs discovered an
enormous human head sculptured in alabaster.
They said it was Nimrud himself; but Mr. Layard
saw at once that it must belong to a winged lion or


156
HUMAN-HEADED LIONS.
bull. It was in admirable preservation. The ex-
pression was majestically calm, and the outline of
the features showed a wonderful freedom and un-
expected knowledge of art. A corresponding figure
was next exhumed; and soon afterwards, a pair
of winged human-headed lions, differing from the
others in form, the human shape being continued
to the waist, and furnished with arms. In one
hand each figure carried a goat or stag; and in the
other, which hung down by the side, a branch with
three flowers. These lions were about twelve feet
in height, and the same number in length; with
body and limbs admirably moulded, and the strongly
developed muscles and bones rendered with correct
anatomical knowledge. Expanded wings sprung
from the shoulders and spread over the back; a
knotted girdle, with tassels, encircled the loins.
"I used to contemplate for hours," says Mr.
Layard, "these mysterious emblems, and muse over
their intent and history. What more noble forms
could have ushered the people into the temple of
their gods? What more sublime images could have
been borrowed from nature, by men who sought,
unaided by the light of revealed religion, to embody
their conception of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity





layard's reflections.
159
of a Supreme Being? They could find no better
type of intellect and knowledge than the head of
the man; of strength, than the body of the lion;
of rapidity of motion, than the wings of the bird.
These winged human-headed lions were not idle
creations, the offspring of mere fancy; their mean-
ing was written upon them. They had awed and
instructed races which flourished three thousand
years ago. Through the portals which they
guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne
sacrifices to their altars, long before the wisdom
of the East had penetrated to Greece, and had
furnished its mythology with symbols long recog-
nized by the Assyrian votaries. They may have
been buried, and their existence may have been
unknown, before the foundation of the Eternal City.
For twenty-five centuries they had been hidden
from the eye of man, and they now stood forth once
more in their ancient majesty. But how changed
was the scene around them! The luxury and
civilization of a mighty nation had given place to
the wretchedness and ignorance of a few half-
barbarous tribes. The wealth of temples, and the
riches of great cities, had been succeeded by ruins
and shapeless heaps of earth. Above the spacious


160
NINEVITE PALACES.
hall in which they stood, the plough had passed,
and the corn now waved. Egypt has monuments
no less ancient and no less wonderful; but they
have stood forth for ages to testify her early power
and renown; whilst those before me had but now
appeared, to bear witness in the words of the
prophet, that once 'the Assyrian was a cedar in
Lebanon, with fair branches and with a shadowing
shroud of an high stature; and his top was among
the thick boughs.'"
Beneath the huge mound which had so long
covered the Assyrian Pompeii, it was not one palace
only that Mr. Layard discovered, but three palaces,
within a common enclosure, which occupied the
south-west angle of the ancient city. Our space,
however, prevents us from supplying any detailed
account of his labours. Sometimes he carried on
his excavations by cutting long open trenches, some-
times by subterranean galleries. In each case, the
results were surprising, and Assyrian civilization
underwent, as it were, a complete resurrection.
The reader must not confound, as, under the
common name of excavations at Nineveh, is some-
times confounded, Mr. Layard's work at Nimrud


A PALACE AT KOUYUNJIK.
161
with M. Botta's at Khorsabad. The latter site lies
to the north-east, the former to the south of Mosul.
The inscriptions exhumed attest that the Assyrian
name of Nimrud was Kalah, a name occurring in
the Book of Genesis as that of one of the oldest of
the Assyrian cities (Gen. x. 11). Nineveh itself
was situated directly opposite to the present town
of Mosul, on the other side of the Tigris. There,
two considerable mounds rise opposite each other,
at a distance of about one mile; the southern being
that of Nebi Yunnus, connected by local legends
with the Biblical story of Jonah, and " consecrated"
by the tomb of a Mohammedan saint; the northern
that of Kouyunjik. The latter, as we have already
stated, was the scene of Botta's researches. It was
re-examined by Mr. Layard in 1847. He pursued
his investigations with such skill and energy, in-
fusing something of his own vigour and enthusiasm
into his Arab labourers, that in the space of a few
months he disinterred no fewer than seventy-one
halls, chambers, or passages, covered with an
immense quantity of inscriptions and sculptured
bas-reliefs. He had struck the very centre of a
palace more spacious and more profusely orna-
mented than the palaces of Nimrud. The con-
(608) 11


A REMARKABLE INSCRIPTION.
163
Mr. Layard, in this second expedition, did not
confine himself to Assyrian territory, but extended
his inquiries, in 1849, into Babylonia. He made
some excavations on the site of Babylon, but with-
out any great results. Afterwards, in descending
the Tigris, he halted at a locality known to the
Arabs under the name of Kalah-Shergat, remarkable
for one of the largest mounds in all this region. It
lies on the right bank of the river, two days' jour-
ney below Nimrud. Among the more interesting
objects found here were numerous copies of a
cylinder on which is engraved a long inscription
in the name of the king Tiglath-Pileser. The
study of this inscription furnished Assyriologists
with one of the most valuable historical documents
which have been exhumed from Assyrian soil. We
will endeavour to give a brief analysis of it:—
As is customary in these inscriptions, the king
begins with an invocation to the great gods of the
land of Assur. Then follows a long enumeration
of his titles. "Tiglath-Pileser, the powerful king,
the supreme king of the peoples of all tongues;
king of the four regions, king of kings, lord of
lords, master supreme; the illustrious chief pro-
tected by the Sun-god, armed with the sceptre,


164 IV PRAISE OF TIGLATH-PILESER.
clothed with the girdle of authority over all men,
reigning over all the people of Bel; the mighty
prince whose praises are spread afar among the
kings, the honoured sovereign whose servants Assur
has designed for the government of the four regions,
and has rendered his name celebrated for all
posterity; who has conquered numerous plains and
mountains in the high and low countries; the
brilliant star who has carried war into stranger-
lands, and under the auspices of Bel, the god who
has no equal, has submitted to the yoke the
enemies of Assur."
After this preamble, the king of kings begins to
name his various expeditions and victories, proceed-
ing with year after year, and campaign after
campaign. A very great number of countries,
provinces, and peoples or tribes, are mentioned;
some situated to the north and north-west in Upper
Armenia; others to the west, towards the confines
of Asia Minor (the two furthest countries in this
direction are the land of Komoukha, which seems
to correspond with the Commagene; and the land of
the Koumain or Khamana, which should probably
be looked for in northern Syria, towards Mount
Amanus); others to the south-west, as far as the


HIS DEEDS IN PEACE AND WAR.
165
Mediterranean; and, lastly, others to the east,
towards the mountainous districts which separated
Assyria from Media.
Tiglath-Pileser also sets forth the victories which
signalized the first five years of his reign. He had
rendered himself master of forty-two countries and
their kings, "from the region which is beyond the
Zab, with its plains, its forests, and its mountains,
to the country beyond the Euphrates, the land of
the Khatti, and the Western Sea." Next he tells
us the temples and palaces he constructed or re-
stored, the canals he opened up for the irrigation
of the country, the useful animals and new trees
he had introduced into Assyria. Altogether the
impression conveyed by the inscription is, that the
Assyrian monarch was not only a successful warrior,
but an able and a sagacious statesman.
With Tiglath-Pileser commences a period of about
three centuries, forming the most brilliant era in
Assyrian history. It was then that the Ninevite
empire attained the climax of its power. We may
here remark that none of the monuments exhumed
are earlier than this glorious period. The two of
greatest antiquity, the palace north-west of Nim-
rud and the central palace, were respectively raised


KING SALMANASAR.
169
Pileser and the husband of Semiramis, when the
Assyrian kings reigned over all Western Asia,
when Babylonia and Media, Mesopotamia and
Armenia, Syria, and even Egypt, were but the
provinces or tributary states of Nineveh, who could
have foreseen that so much greatness was to perish
in a terrible catastrophe? Yet the day destined to
witness the crash of empire was now at hand; the
fall was as sudden as the elevation had been
rapid.
History reveals to us the cause. Media and
Babylonia, supported by the king of Bactriana,
united in an offensive and defensive alliance to
recover their independence. Nineveh was over-
thrown, and a new dynasty succeeded to that
which had been glorified by such grand achieve-
ments. But it was not long before the princes of
this new race re-conquered, foot by foot, the
ancient preponderance of their kingdom. The
inscriptions discovered by Botta and Layard confirm
and complete the Scriptural records. Salmanasar,
who subjugated Samaria in B.c. 721, and carried
away the remnant of the ten tribes into captivity,
was the second king of the new monarchy. His suc-
cessor, Sargun, erected the city and palace buried


170
AN HISTORIC INSCRIPTION.
under the mound of Khorsabad. He was a warrior
and a conqueror; and his son, Sennacherib, inherited
his military capacity. The palace unearthed by
Layard at Kouyunjik, the royal quarter of Nineveh,
was commenced by him, and completed by his son and
successor, Sardanapalus. The Assyrian architecture
is commemorated by no more beautiful monument.
In one of the inscriptions on its walls we read :—
"I have enlarged all the buildings of Nineveh, my
royal city. I have reconstructed its ancient
streets; I have widened the narrow ones; I have
made the entire city to shine like the sun."
A few words must now be devoted to the paint-
ings and statuary discovered among the ruins of
Nineveh. We shall follow the judicious criticisms
of M. Saint Martin.
Whether Assyrian art, like Egyptian art, was
fettered by certain religious ordinances or formulas,
it is impossible to determine; but both in Assyria
and Egypt the plastic arts were abruptly arrested
at the very point of their development. In both
countries prevailed the same conventionality of
types and rigidity of outlines; though there was
more elasticity in Assyria than in Egypt. The



FIGURE CARRYING A GOAT, NIMRUD





ASSYRIAN ART.
173
Assyrian artist, it is true, has, like the Egyptian,
a constant type for each of his figures; whether he
puts before us priest, warrior, or captive, he adopts
always the same costume, the same symbols, almost
the same attitude; but in the delineation of each
individual, he evidently sought to approximate to
nature. In the countenance and the limbs, he
introduced a degree of life and freedom to which
the Egyptian sculptor was a stranger. He
rendered, as well as he could, the prominence of
the muscles and the play of the joints. His chisel
took a delight in details, in ornaments, in the
execution of the hair and beard. And in the
representation of animal life he displayed a very
considerable skill. Even with modern artists he
could challenge comparison in the vivacity and
freedom of his horses and his lions. But in his
human figures correctness of proportion and a
knowledge of foreshortening were as wholly want-
ing as perspective and harmony in his scenes and
groups. All was thrown upon the same plane with
a truly primitive simplicity of execution. If he
desired to depict a valley watered by a running
stream, he could devise nothing better than to plant
his trees in an inverse direction; so that on one


174
THE TWO STATUES.
bank the tree-tops rose on high, and on the other
appeared to grow downwards. It is difficult to
understand how such barbarism could be reconciled
with the comparative perfection to which certain
manual arts had attained; though the same
anomaly is found existing among the ancient
Egyptians, as well as among all the civilized
nations of Southern and Eastern Asia.
True Art,—that is, the art which breathes the
sentiments of the beautiful and the harmonies of
Nature,—is an offspring of the Greek genius. And
yet the Greek Art has its roots in the Asiatic Art,
just as the delicate flower, the corolla of which
reflects the azure of heaven, derives its life and
sustenance from the rude, dull earth.
Only two statues, properly so called, have been
found among the Assyrian memorials; one, a seated
figure, much mutilated, in the ruins of Kalah-
Shergat; the other, erect, in one of the palaces of
Nimrud. The latter is nearly half life-size, and is
carved out of a compact limestone.
It had always been supposed that the first in-
spiration of the plastic arts passed from Egypt into
Greece and Italy. But one of the results, and not
the least interesting, of the Assyrian discoveries


ORIGIN OF SCULPTURE.
175
is, that this theory has been found incorrect. The
exact resemblance of the vases and cups of Phoenicia
and Nineveh to the most ancient ceramic products
of Etruria and Greece, shows whence came the
imitation The resemblance is one of form, orna-
ment, and emblematic subjects. From this point of
view, the study of Assyrian art obviously acquires
a special importance. It is the same with its
sculpture, the first germ of the antique statuary.
We may trace its progress across Asia Minor, from
the banks of the Euphrates to the shores of the
blue iEgean, and from Asiatic Greece into Hellas
itself. Asia Minor, before it passed under the
sceptre of the Persian, had, for long centuries,
acknowledged the Assyrian supremacy. Time has
obliterated almost all the landmarks of the Assyrian
period, but those of the Persian era are still numer-
ous; and Persian art, as it was developed under
the dynasty of the Akhemenides, was nothing more
than an offshoot of Assyrian art.
The clearest proofs of the remarkable manual
dexterity of the Assyrian workers are found in the
crowd of small articles of daily and personal use, as
well as in some special departments of industrial


176
ASSYRIAN TRADES.
labour. Here, again, we observe a characteristic
which they had in common with the Egyptians, in
whose tombs, as the reader knows, have been found
ornaments, utensils, jewels, weapons, dating from
twelve to fifteen centuries before the Christian
era, of almost marvellous perfection of design and
execution.
The Assyrians were acquainted with glass and
various kinds of enamel. They could bake clay
for bricks, or for vessels and pottery-ware of finer
or coarser texture. Bricks were very largely
employed, in Assyria as at Babylon, for purposes
of building and ornament, as well as in various
other ways. It was upon square or cylindrical
bricks that they inscribed, as we have seen, either
by means of moulds, or by writing with stylets on
the clay while soft, all the records and facts which
they wished to preserve. They applied also to the
bricks employed in interior work designs in various
colours, producing an effect not unlike that of
Etruscan ornament. Their pottery shows both
taste and elegance; and as much may be said of
their vessels in alabaster or bronze. In sun-baked
clay they modelled also a number of fanciful
articles.


178
ASSYRIAN METAL-WORK.
and fine textures of the Babylonian cottons were
held in high repute. Such was the case, also, with
the silken robes of Assyria. The looms of Babylon
continued celebrated down to the days of Roman
supremacy. Their products, like the Assyrian robes,
seem to have been embroidered with figures of flowers
and animals. Arrian records that a purple carpet
covered the tomb of Cyrus; and that Babylonian
garments, carpets, and purple drapery adorned the
couch on which his dead body was laid.
But in metal-work the Assyrians displayed as
much skill as in the products of their looms. Their
mountains yielded iron, silver, copper, lead, and
perhaps, in small quantities, gold. Iron abounded
to such an extent that it was a recognized article of
export, occasionally in the ore, but generally in the
shape of bricks or pigs. The metals were also sent
abroad in manufactured forms, such as vases; or, if
gold and silver, in rings. Copper was extensively
used, not only for ornaments, but in the construc-
tion of weapons and tools. It was inlaid into their
iron helmets, and formed part of their armour.
Daggers and arrow-heads were frequently made. of
it; but in this case a certain quantity of iron was
mixed with it, and it was further hardened by an


180
ASSYRIAN RELIGION.
eveh and Babylon. The jewellery figured on the
bas-reliefs, bracelets, collars, ear-rings, and the like,
display an astonishing amount of manual skilL It
is a common characteristic of both Assyrians and
Egyptians, that their tombs contain the weapons,
jewels, and other personal articles of the deceased.
These, dating from twelve to fifteen centuries before
the Christian era, are frequently as graceful in
design as exquisite in workmanship. The Assyrians
were also fine artists in ivory, and knew how to
engrave upon various kinds of precious stones.
As to the Assyrian religion and worship, we can
offer but a few suggestive particulars, referring the
reader for fuller details to the works of Layard,
Birch, Rawlinson, and George Smith. And it must
be owned that though much valuable information
has been obtained from the inscriptions and bas-
reliefs, our knowledge is far from exact. The sym-
bols most frequently met with in the sculptures and
ornaments, putting aside the human-headed buHs and
lions, are human figures with a hawk's head, or a
fish's body, winged genii, and a kind of Hercules
strangling a lion in his arms. Two emblems of
constant recurrence are the pine-apple, and a basket,


EMBLEM OF DIVINITY.
181
which a symbolic personage holds in each hand.
Among the Assyrians, as among the Persians, the
emblem of the Supreme Divinity is a figure issuing
from a winged circle.


PART III.
^Rr. deorge (Smith's ^iscobmts.
HE late Mr. George Smith, an Assyriologist
of high repute, made some discoveries
among the ruins of Nineveh in 1866-
72, including the tablets containing the Chaldean
account of the Deluge, which excited great public
interest, and induced the proprietors of the Daily
Telegraph to place at his disposal a sum of one thou-
sand guineas for further explorations, on condition
that he supplied their journal from time to time
with accounts of his journeys and the results of
his researches.
In April 1873 he commenced work on the
mound of Nimrud. Thence he proceeded to
Kouyunjik. Having formed a collection of antiq-
uities, he transported it to England, returning to
the scene of his profitable labours in January 1874,


IZDUBAR OR NIMROD.
183
and occupying himself in well-directed excavations
for several months. He finally returned to England
in June.
Among his most remarkable "finds," was the
Izdubar or Flood series of legends, engraved upon
twelve tablets, and recording the adventures of a
hero, whom Mr. Smith names Izdubar, and identifies
with the Nimrod of the Bible. These legends
appear to have been compiled during the early
Babylonian empire, or upwards of two thousand
years before Christ; and, so far as can now be
ascertained, they lead to the conclusion that Izdubar
or Nimrod, a great hunter or giant, ruled over the
country round Babylon, and, afterwards expelling
the tyrannical sovereign of Erech, added this terri-
tory to his kingdom. Afterwards he destroyed a
monster which ravaged the adjacent districts; and
formed a close intimacy with a seer, named
Heabani, who visited his court at Erech. The two
destroyed several other wild animals, and conquered
a chief, Humbaba, whose mountainous land was
full of pine-trees. Another chief, Belesu, was next
subdued; and then an animal called "the divine
hell" was killed. "Izdubar," says our authority,
"was now in the height of his power, and ruled


184
AN ASSYRIAN LEGEND.
over all the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris,
from the Persian Gulf to the Armenian Mountains.
Misfortunes now set in. First, Heabani was killed
by a wild animal called a 'tamabukku,' the nature
of which I have not ascertained; next, Izdubar was
struck with a disease, — apparently, from the
description, a kind of leprosy. Izdubar went on a
wandering excursion to the sea-coast to be cured of
his malady, and is supposed there to have met the
deified hero who escaped the flood. In the new
fragments I found at Kouyunjik I discovered that
this hero bore the name of Hasisadra, which is the
origin of the Greek form of his name, Xisithrus.
Hasisadra is supposed to have told Izdubar how to
obtain his cure; and then the king returned to
Erech, and again mourned over his friend Heabani.
The legends close with a petition to the gods for
Heabani, who, after his death, is in the lower region
of the departed, or hell. Hea, one of the gods,
listens to this prayer, and releases Heabani, who
then rises to heaven."
The principal incident, however, in the Izdubar
legends, of which the foregoing may be taken as a
specimen, is the account of the Deluge, which
Hasisadra is supposed to pour into Izdubar's,


ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.
185
wondering ear. Its points of correspondence with
the Biblical narrative are numerous and important.
After describing the construction of an immense
ship, the legend continues to relate that "Surip-
pakik, son of Ubaratutu," entered into it, with his
grain, furniture, and goods, his women servants, his
female slaves, and the young men, the beasts of the
field, and "all the animals of the field." Then—
'' A flood Shamas made and
he spake saying in the night: 'I will cause it to rain heavily.'...
That flood happened (of which)
he spake saying in the night: 'I will cause it to rain [or it will raiu)
from heaven heavily.'...
The raging of a storm in the morning
arose, from the horizon of heaven extending and wide.
Vol in the midst of it thundered, and
Nebo and Saru went in frqnt;
the throne-bearers went over mountains and plains;
the destroyer Nergal overturned;
Ninip went in front and cast down;
the spirits carried destruction,—
in their glory they swept the earth;
Of Vul the flood reached to heaven.
The bright earth to a waste was turned;
the surface of the earth like...it swept;
it destroyed all life from the face of the earth;...
the strong deluge over the people reached to heaven.
Brother saw not his brother; it did not spare the people.
In heaven
the gods feared the tempest, and
Bought refuge; they ascended to the heaven of Anu."
After various details, intended to show the im


186
ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.
mensity of the catastrophe, we find that on the
seventh day the storm subsided, and the rains
ceased, and there was quietness on the face of the
waters. Then the Assyrian Noah looked forth;
and, behold, all mankind was turned to corruption,
and the dead bodies floated to and fro like reeds.
"I opened my window, and the light broke over my face;
it passed. I sat down and wept;
over my face flowed my tears.
I perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea;
for twelve measures the land rose.
To the country of Nizir went the ship;
the mountain of Nizir stopped the ship, and to pass over it it was
not able...
On the seventh day
I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and
a resting-place it could not enter, and it returned.
I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and turned, and
a resting-place it could not enter, and it returned.
I sent forth a raven, and it left.
The raven went, and the drying up of the water it saw, and
it did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did not return.
I sent the animals forth to the four winds; I poured out a libation;
I built an altar on the peak of the mountain;
by sevens herbs I cut;
at the bottom of them I placed reeds, pines, and spices.
The gods collected at its burning, the gods collected at its good
burning;
the gods like flies over the sacrifice gathered.
From of old also the great god in his course
The great brightness of Ana had created."
Izdubar, the hero of these legends, is regarded
by Mr. Smith as a representative of the beginning


LEGENDS OF IZDUBAB.
187
of empire, a type of the great conquering monarchs
who succeeded him. The tablets show that, like
later kings, he had his court, his seer or astrologer,
and his officers. But the special value of these
memorials lies in their revelation of the fact that,
nearly four thousand years ago, the Babylonians
cherished a tradition of a Flood which was divinely
ordained as a punishment for the world's wicked-
ness; of a holy man who built an ark, and escaped
the general destruction; who was afterwards raised
up on high to dwell among the gods. They tell us,
also, that the builders of Nineveh and its palaces
believed in hell, a place of torment under the earth;
and heaven, a place of glory in the sky. And it is
interesting to note the resemblances between their
description of the two and that which is given in
Holy Writ. They believed in a soul or spirit sepa-
rate from the body, which did not perish on the
death of the mortal frame, and this soul or spirit
they represent as rising from the earth at the divine
command, and winging its way to heaven.
Other inscriptions discovered by Mr. Smith were
of a purely historical character, and relate to various
early Babylonian kings. Thus, one disinterred at


188
MR. smith's discoveries.
Kouyunjik belonged to king Aga, who restored the
temple of Merodach some two thousand years before
the Christian era. Another, of equal antiquity, is
connected with Dungi, a Chaldean monarch. Yet
another refers to Hammurubi, an early Babylonian
sovereign, who is described as "the powerful warrior
destroying the enemy, sweeper away of opposition,
possessor of his enemies; maker of battle, spreader
of reverence; the plunderer, the warrior, the de-
stroyer." Mr. Smith also discovered a monolith of
the king Merodach-Baladan,—a large white stone,
about three feet high, having on the face a rude
picture containing the emblems of the gods, includ-
ing the symbols of the sun and moon, a scorpion,
dove, winged lion, a ziggurat or tower, and many
others; and on the back an inscription in three
columns, of 115 lines of writing, giving an account
of a field of which this was the boundary or memo-
rial stone, and recording that the said field had been
conferred by Merodach-Baladan, the king, on his
servant Maraduk-zakir-izkur, in acknowledgment of
services rendered to the state.
The inscriptions which relate to the reign of
Tiglath-Pileser are of special interest, from the way
in which they touch the Biblical history at various


tiglath-pileser's inscriptions.
189
points. The names of Azaiah and Jehoahaz (Ahaz),
kings of Judah; of Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea,
kings of Israel; of Rezon of Damascus, and Hiram
of Tyre, are of frequent occurrence; while such par-
ticulars as remain of the later campaigns are in
exact accordance with the Biblical narrative of
Tiglath-Pileser's alliance with Ahaz, king of Judah.
In one of the fragments a description is given of the
siege of Damascus and the defeat of Rezon, king of
Syria; in others we read of the conquest of the
Philistines; in others, again, of the invasion of
Israel, the death of Pekah, king of Samaria, and
the accession of Hoshea. There can be no doubt
that Mr. Smith was justified in concluding that
further and systematic excavations at Nimrud would
throw a valuable light on the study of Jewish
history.
But the inscriptions which we owe to the research
of Mr. Smith are not all of an historical character.
Many relate to religious subjects, to astrology and
astronomy, to geography and natural history, demon-
ology, laws, contracts, and the like. One of them,
engraved in two languages on a tablet of terra
cotta, is very curious, and would seem to have been


190
HYMN TO LIGHT.
composed by an Assyrian valis, at once bard and
priest . Mr. Smith calls it a hymn to the light of
heaven; but it is rather a kind of lyrical invoca-
tion, in which light is sometimes eulogized, some-
times apostrophized. We subjoin the translation :—
"1. That which in the storehouse of heaven is kindled, and to the
cities of men flies, my glory.
2. Queen of Heaven above and below, may they call my glory.
3. Countries at once, I sweep in my glory.
4. Of countries their walls am I; their great defence am I in my
glory."
Here the inscription changes its character:—
"5. May thy heart rejoice; may thy liver be satisfied;
6. 0 lord great Anu, may thy heart rejoice;
7. 0 lord great mountain Bel, may thy liver be satisfied;
8. O goddess lady of heaven, may thy heart rejoice;
9. 0 mistress lady of heaven, may thy liver be satisfied;
10. 0 mistress lady of the temple of Anu, may thy heart rejoice;
11. 0 mistress lady of Erech, may thy liver be satisfied;
12. 0 mistress lady of Zasreh-erech, may thy heart rejoice;
13. O mistress lady of Harris-Kalama (that is, Mount of the World),
may thy liver be satisfied;
14. 0 mistress lady of Silim-Kalama, may thy heart rejoice;
15. 0 mistress lady of Babylon, may thy liver be satisfied;
16. O mistress lady named Nanu, may thy heart rejoice;
17. 0 lady of the temple, lady of the gods, may thy liver be satis-
fied." ,
In their employment of the liver as the seat of
the affections the Assyrian poets anticipated the
Roman.'


THE SEVEN WICKED GODS.
191
Another remarkable memorial described by Mr.
Smith, and supposed by him to have been the
production of some Chaldean priest during the early
Babylonian monarchy, belongs to a series of mytho-
logical subjects, and relates the story of the Seven
Wicked Gods or Spirits.
It opens thus :—
"1. In the first days the evil gods
2. the angels who were in rebellion, who in the lower part of heaven
3. had been created,
4. they caused their evil work
5. devising with wicked heads...
6. ruling to the river...
7. There were seven of them. The first was...
8. the second was a great animal...
9. ...which any one...
10. the third was a leopard..;
11. the fourth was a serpent...
12. the fifth was a terrible. which to...
13. The sixth was a striker which to god and king did not submit,
14. the seventh was the messenger of the evil wind which made.
15. The seven of them messengers of the god Anu their king—
16. From city to city went round
17. the tempest of heaven was strongly bound to them,
18. the flying clouds of heaven surrounded them,
19. the downpour of the skies which in the bright day
20. makes darkness, was attached to them
21. with a violent wind, an evil wind, they began,
22. the tempest of Vul was their might,
23. at the right hand of Vul they came,
24. from the surface of heaven like lightning they darted,
25. descending to the abyss of waters, at first they came.
26. In the wide heavens of the god Anu the king
27. evil they set up, and an opponent they had not.


REBELLION IN HEAVEN.
193
days of creation, when animals of hideous form
usurped to some extent the supremacy of the uni-
erse. Sun, Moon, and Stars as yet had not been
wst in their appointed courses. In the upper celes-
tial regions ruled the god Anu, who may be re-
garded as almost identical with the Ouranos of the
Greeks. He was supreme ruler of Heaven, and of
the seven evil spirits, while his son Vul was god
)( the atmosphere and its phenomena. Bel, as god
of the middle regions, held sway upon Earth; as
already stated, he was the chief centre and object
of all Babylonian worship. He represents the prin-
siple of active and creative life, while Anu is a
passive divinity, overlooking all the movements of
ihe universe, but seldom checking or controlling
;hem. The region under the earth, and the ocean,
ivere governed by Hea, who seems to typify the
visdom or intelligence of the gods. Thus we have
i trinity of deities, a godhead with a threefold
iharacter. As for the seven demon-gods, they
vere probably the originals of the Titans of the
Jreeks; and their rebellion against Anu and Hea
eminds us of the Titanic war against Zeus. In
rder to dispel the confusion and disorder prevailing
q Heaven, Bel resolves to set in their places the
(eos) 13


THE CHALDEAN WORLD.
195
The Hebrew prophets, contemporaries of the Assy-
rian power, and after them Herodotus and Ctesias,
speak in the most glowing terms of the wealth of
the Ninevite and Babylonian kings, of the splen-
dour of their court, of the stateliness of their edifices;
and now we see that the ruins, buried beneath the
dust of four-and-twenty centuries, confirm this
ancient testimony, and dazzle us, as it were, with a
last glance of the old proud monarchies of the East.
We must not expect, however, that the social
condition of the Chaldean world resembled that of
the polished and intellectual age of Pericles, still
less that it approximated to the refined and enlight-
ened civilization of our modern communities. There
was a certain materialistic element, so to speak, in
the civilization of the ancient East. Its develop-
ment, like its splendour, is wholly external, with
numerous and violent contrasts, and in not a few
points closely touching upon barbarism.
At the summit of the hierarchy is placed the
king. His person figures in a multitude of scenes
of war, religion, and the chase, represented on the
monuments. Sometimes we see him seated on his
throne, with bow and arrow in hand, assisting at
the siege of a hostile city; sometimes mounted on



THE KING, NORTH-WEST PALACE NIMRUD.





ASSYRIAN CUSTOMS.
199
apart from the nature of their material and their
ornaments, the articles in use in daily life were the
same among the lower as among the higher classes.
The Assyrians, unlike our modern Orientals, seated
themselves on seats not unlike our fauteuils and
tabourets; and their meals, like ours, were laid out
upon tables. Tables and chairs were richly and
tastefully decorated, and the ornamentation resembles
that which is in vogue among ourselves.
The clothes, at least of court personages and
officials, display an equal luxuriousness. They are
tunics or robes of greater or less length, mantles of
various shapes, scarves with long fringes, embroi-
dered girdles—the whole covered with a profusion
of ornaments, which, as well as the embroideries,
are always in excellent taste. The Assyrian fancy
ran riot in capricious designs like arabesques, in
wreaths of flowers, in graceful combinations of ani-
mals and foliage.
Like all the Eastern nations, the Assyrians be-
stowed special attention upon the beard; and the
mode in which it is arranged in plaits on the bas-
reliefs is very curious and characteristic. The hair, of
which equal care was taken, fell down to the neck
in a thick chignon, plaited or curled like the beard.


200
SCENES OF WAE.
In none of the sculptured bas-reliefs which adorned
the Assyrian palaces is a single female figure repre-
sented, except in certain scenes of captive enemies,
where the two sexes are commingled. To war in
its various aspects—the march, the siege, the battle,
the victory—the great majority of the Ninevite
sculptures are dedicated. The Assyrian forces were
composed partly of foot soldiers armed with pikes or
bows, partly of horsemen armed in the Parthian
fashion, and partly of archers mounted on chariots.
Some are clothed from head to foot in coat of mail.
They were guided by standard-bearers. The ma-
chines of which they made use were not unlike
those employed at a later period by the Romans.
With huge rams, carried upon wheels, they battered
down the hostile ramparts; with long ladders they
escaladed the walls, and stormed the beleaguered
city. A battle-field presents on the monuments a
terrible scene of confusion and carnage; and from
the Biblical narrative we learn that the Assyrians
disgraced their victories by ruthless slaughter.
Gory heads, prisoners impaled in sight of a be-
sieged town, others flayed alive,—these are pain-
ful testimonies to the inhuman character of the
Assyrian wars. Maritime campaigns are also


202
THE ROYAL HUNTS.
prey, especially the lion and the buffalo, which in-
fested the plains of the Euphrates and the Tigris,
was to render a greater service to the state than by
conquering a province. When the Book of Genesis
says of Nimrod that "he was a mighty hunter
before the Lord," we may well take the words of
the sacred text in no emblematical or non-literal
sense, but in their direct acceptation. It is thus
that in the Greek myths the first exploits of the
heroes and demigods compass the destruction of the
wild beasts which ravaged the country, then alter-
nating between swamp and forest.
We have left ourselves little space to speak of
the Assyrian architecture. So far as the habita-
tions of princes and nobles were concerned, their
scale was evidently colossal. They were raised upon
a massive terrace of steps, faced with bricks, while
their outer walls, also composed of bricks, were
decorated with slabs of basalt or marmoriform
gypsum, on which were sculptured bas-reliefs with
their inscriptions. Human-headed bulls or lions,
wrought in granite or alabaster, gave a monumental
aspect to the entrance gate. The interior was not
less imposing than magnificent. A long suite of


•t
*
1


ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.
205
halls, with numerous chambers and private apart-
ments on either side, succeeded one another, covering
an immense area. Some of these halls, which have
been exhumed and cleared, measure one hundred
feet in length, and nearly the same in breadth.
Their ceilings were supported by rows of huge pil-
lars; their walls were profusely embellished with
marbles and sculptures. The whole effect, it is evi-
dent, must have been one of equal stateliness and
splendour.
But here we must pause. We have endeavoured
in the preceding pages to trace the course of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, and to indicate the char-
acter of the scenery through which they take their
way. But their chief interest necessarily centres in
the memorials of a remote antiquity which are scat-
tered along their banks; in the monuments which
tell the romantic story of the rise and fall of mighty
empires. With the Euphrates must always be asso-
ciated the name of Babylon; with the Tigris that
of Nineveh. It is strange that two such imperial
cities should have risen within so short distance of
each other; but it is stranger that they should have
been so alike in their civilization, their history, their
sudden wealth and prosperity, their rapid decay,


20G
TWO MEMORABLK CITIES.
and their long centuries of oblivion. As among the
Famous Rivers of the world the Euphrates and the
Tigris must always occupy together a foremost place,
so must Babylon and Nineveh be always associated
among its Memorable Cities.