cotyledons. Doves and quails had returned a few days before from their migrations. As the river was high, we were obliged to turn up the rocky uplands west of Es Seramúm, an old country residence of its Páshás.

"The rocky acclivities and stony valleys of the Jubaïlah were now clad with a beautiful vegetation. Grass was abundant, and the green sward was chequered with red ranuculuses and composite plants of a golden-yellow hue, which enliven at this season of the year by their contrast the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, wherever they are stony. Crossing the Jubaïlah, and leaving the village of Abú Jawárí, 'the father of female slaves,' to our left, we descended upon another alluvial plain, such as, on the Tigris and Euphrates, whether cultivated or covered with jungle, is equally designated Háwí. The present one was cultivated, and contained the two villages, both inhabited by Arabs, now pasturing their flocks.

"At the end of this plain the ground rises, and at this point. are the baths and a village, the latter inhabited by a few Chaldees, settled here by the Páshá of Mósul to cultivate the land. The thermal spring is covered by a building, only commodious for half savage people, yet the place is much frequented by persons of the better classes, both from Baghdad and Mósul. Close by is a mound about 60 feet high, called 'the mound of the victor,' from a tradition of an engagement having taken place in this neighbourhood.

"On the following morning leaving Hammám 'Ali, we crossed an extensive Háwí, near the centre of which is the village of Safatus, inhabited by the Arab tribe of Juhaïsh, or ' of the ass's colt.' We then turned off to the right to the ruined village of Jeheïnah, or Jehennem, 'Hell or the Lower Regions,' which name excited our expectations, but we only found some old houses of a better class. Our road continued for three hours over verdant prairies, on an upland of gypsum, with some tracts of sandstone, when we arrived at ReedValley, the banks of a sluggish stream being covered with that plant. We roused an old sow from this cover, and captured a young pig which it was obliged to leave behind. As the animal went grunting down the valley, it stirred up several others with their young ones, which we hunted down, catching two more, one of which we liberated, as two were quite enough for our wants. We approached the Tigris, a few miles

1

114

DESCRIPTION OF KALAH SHERGHAT.

below the tomb of Sultan 'Abdullah, which was the extreme point reached by the Euphrates steamer in 1839, and passing an abundant rivulet of waters which filled the air with the odour of sulphuric acid, we came to a level naked spot, inclosed by rocks of gypsum, on the floor of which were innumerable springs of asphalt or bitumen oozing out of the soil in little circular fountains, but often buried beneath or surrounded by a deep crust of indurated bitumen. A little beyond these pits we found other springs, giving off an equal quantity of bitumen. These are the only cases I know of springs of pure asphalt in Western Asia.

"On the succeeding day, starting over a low range of hills of red sandstone, we entered upon an extensive Háwí, over which we travelled two hours to a red cliff. The banks of the Tigris were well wooded and picturesque; extensive tracts of meadow land were bounded by green hills, and terminated in islands of several miles in length, covered with trees and brushwood, amid which winded the rapid Tigris, in a broad and noble expanse visible as far as the eye could reach. The quantity of large wood near it is greater than on the Euphrates, and the resources for steam navigation are very great.

"Passing the cliffs of red sandstone, from which point to the Harmín the Tigris follows a more easterly course, we came to a valley with a brackish rivulet, coming from the Wádì-l-A'hmer. Steep cliffs advanced beyond this to the banks of the river, and obliged us to turn inwards upon the uplands, from which we first gained a view of Kalah Sherghat, situate in the midst of a most beautiful meadow, well wooded, watered by a small tributary to the Tigris, washed by the noble river itself, and backed by the rocky range of the Jebel Khánúkah, now covered with broad and deep shadows. In three hours' time we arrived at the foot of this extensive and lofty mound, where we took up our station on the northern side, immediately below the central ruin, and on the banks of a ditch formed by the recoil of the Tigris.

"Although familiar with the great Babylonian and Chaldean mounds of Birs Nimroud, Mujelebeh, and Orchoe, the appearance of the mass of construction now before us filled me with wonder. On the plain of Babylonia, to build a hill has a meaning; but there was a strange adherence to an antique custom, in thus piling brick upon brick, without regard to teh

cost and value of labour, where hills innumerable and equally good and elevated sites were easily to be found. Although in places reposing upon solid rock (red and brown sand-stones), still almost the entire depth of the mound, which was in parts upwards of 60 feet high, and at this side 909 yards in extent, was built up of sun-burnt bricks, like the 'Aker Kúf and the Mujelebeh, only without intervening layers of reeds. On the sides of these lofty artificial cliffs numerous hawks and crows nestled in security, while at their base was a deep sloping declivity of crumbled materials. On this northern face, which is the most perfect as well as the highest, there occur at one point the remains of a wall built with large square cut stones, levelled and fitted to one another with the utmost nicety, and bevelled upon the faces, as in many Saracenic structures; the top stones were also cut away as in steps. Mr. Ross deemed this to be part of the still remaining perfect front, which was also the opinion of some of the travellers now present; but so great is the difference between the style of an Assyrian mound of burnt bricks and this partial facing of hewn stone, that it is difficult to conceive that it belonged to the same period, and if carried along the whole front of the mound, some remains of it would be found in the detritus at the base of the cliff, which was not the case. At the same time its position gave to it more the appearance of a facing, whether contemporary with the mound or subsequent to it I shall not attempt to decide, than of a castle, if any castle or other edifice was ever erected here by the Mohammedans, whose style it so greatly resembles.

"Our researches were first directed towards the mound itself. We found its form to be that of an irregular triangle, measuring in total circumference 4685 yards; whereas the Mujelebeh, the supposed tower of Babel, is only 737 yards in circumference; the great mound of Borsippa, known as the Bírs Nimroud, 762 yards; the Kasr, or terraced palace of Nebuchadnezzar, 2100 yards; and the mound called Kóyounjík, at Nineveh, 2563 yards. But it is to be remarked of this Assyrian ruin on the Tigris, that it is not entirely a raised mound of sun-burnt bricks; on the contrary, several sections of its central portions displayed the ordinary pebbly deposit of the river, a common alluvium, and were swept by the Tigris; the mound appeared to be chiefly a mass of rubble and

116

RELATIVE DIMENSIONS OF MOUNDS.

ruins, in which bricks, pottery, and fragments of sepulchral urns lay imbedded in humus, or alternated with blocks of gypsum; finally, at the southern extremity, the mound sinks down nearly to the level of the plain. The side facing the river displayed to us some curious structures, which, not being noticed by Mr. Ross, have been probably laid bare by foods subsequent to his visit. They consisted of four round towers, built of burnt bricks, which were nine inches deep, and thirteen inches in width outwards, but only ten inches inwards, so as to adapt them for being built in a circle. These towers were four feet ten inches in diameter, well-built, and as fresh-looking as if of yesterday. Their use is altogether a matter of conjecture; they were not strong enough to have formed buttresses against the river; nor were they connected by a wall. The general opinion appeared to be in favour of hydraulic purposes, either as wells or pumps, communicating with the Tigris.

"The south-western rampart displays occasionally the remains of a wall constructed of hewn blocks of gypsum, and it is everywhere bounded by a ditch, which, like the rampart, encircles the whole ruins.

"All over this great surface we found traces of foundations of stone edifices, with abundance of bricks and pottery, as observed before, and to which we may add bricks vitrified with bitumen, as are found at Rahábah, Babylon, and other ruins of the same epoch; bricks with impressions of straw, &c., sundried, burnt, and vitrified; and painted pottery with colours still very perfect; but after two hours' unsuccessful search by Messrs. Mitford, Layard, and myself, Mr. Rassám was the first to pick up a brick close to our station, on which were well-defined and indubitable arrow-headed characters.

"On leaving Kalah Sherghat we kept a little to the south. We travelled at a quick pace over a continuous prairie of grasses and flowering plants, till we arrived at a ridge of rocks, which rose above the surrounding country, and were constituted of coarse marine-lime-stones. From a mound, upon which were a few graves, we obtained a comprehensive view of that part of Mesopotamia, but without being able to distinguish the valley of the Tharthar or the ruins of Al Hadhr.

"Opinions as to the probable position of the latter were in 1"Dr. Ross's Journey from Bagdad to Al Hadhr, 1836-7," Jour. R. Geo. Soc., vol. ix. p. 443.

favour of some mounds which were visible in the extreme distance to the south-west, and which turned out to be bare hills of sand-stone, the southern termination of a low ridge.

"Changing our route, we started to the north-west, in which direction we arrived, after one and a quarter hours' ride, at a valley bounded in places by rock terraces of gypsum, which indicated a wádí and a winter torrent, or actual water. To our joy we found the Tharthar flowing along the bottom of this vale, and to our great comfort the waters were very potable. We proceeded up the stream in a direction in search of a ford, which we found after one hour's slow and irregular journey, and we lost half an hour refreshing ourselves with a bath. We afterwards followed the right bank of the stream, being unwilling, as evening was coming on, to separate ourselves, unless we actually saw Al Hadhr, from the water so necessary for ourselves and horses. The river soon came from a more westerly direction, flowing through a valley everywhere clad with a luxuriant vegetation of grasses, sometimes nearly half a mile in width, at others only 300 or 400 yards, and again still more narrowed occasionally by terraces of gypsum.

"On the following morning we deemed it best to keep on up the river, but to travel a little inwards on the heights. This plan was attended with perfect success; and we had ridden only one hour and a half, when we perceived through the misty rain, mounds, which we felt convinced were the sought-for ruins. Mr. Rassám and myself hurried on, but soon afterwards, perceiving a flock of sheep in the distance, we became aware of the presence of Arabs, who could be no other than the Shammar, so we waited for our friends and rode all together into a kind of hollow in which Al Hadhr is situated. Here we perceived the tents of the Bedwíns extending far and wide within the ruins and without the walls. The ruins themselves presented a magnificent appearance, and the distance at which the tall bastions appeared to rise, as if by enchantment, out of the wilderness, excited our surprise. We were filled with a similar sense of wonder and admiration; no doubt in great part due not only to the splendour of the ruins, but also to the strange place where the traveller meets with them'in media solitudine." "

1 Ross, Journ. R. Geo. Soc. vol. ix.