it from the west. From hence, it appeared to extend itself along the western bank of the river, for at least three miles in length. The houses seemed to be thickly crowded, though the mosques were not proportionately numerous. The centre of the town, standing on more elevated ground than its northern and southern extremes, shewed the minaret of Nour-el-Deen, which rises from the great mosque to considerable advantage. The view of the country, to the north of the town, offered nothing of peculiar interest; but to the south, the Pasha's gardens, and some little villas seen through the trees, made a highly picturesque appearance. On reaching the opposite bank of the river, we re-entered Mousul, and going up through the "Sookh el Khiale," or the HorseBazār, where I noticed the only minaret of stone that I had seen in the city, we came to the "Konauk Tātar Agasï," or head-quarters of the couriers, near the palace of the Pasha, where the horses for our journey were just saddling, while the Tartars were cracking their whips, parading about in heavy boots, abusing the grooms and horse-keepers, and in short, giving themselves all the airs which are common among the same class of people, including post-boys, coachmen, &c. in England. We mounted here, and set out on our journey from Mousul to Bagdad, soon after nine o'clock, the Tartars being the same Jonas, and Ali, who had come alone from Diarbekr, and with our caravan across the Desert of Sinjar; they being charged with packets from the British Ambassador at Constantinople, to Mr. Rich at Bagdad. As our horses were now fresh and good, and our saddles and furniture put in order during our short stay at Mousul, we set out with high spirits, and the prospect of an expeditious journey at least, Ali and myself going on before, and leaving Jonas to overtake us. After crossing the Tigris, over the bridge of boats before described, we travelled in a southern direction, receding gradually from the eastern banks of the river, as the stream made here a course of about south-south-west. For the first two hours, during which the whole distance traversed was about ten miles, we continued among hillocks and mounds, which had all the appearance of being formed from the wreck of former buildings. It resembled, in this respect, the indefinite remains and rubbish seen on the sites of other ruined cities, as Alexandria, Memphis, Sais, and Tanis, in Egypt; and left no doubt, in my own mind, of its marking the extent of ancient Nineveh, to be fully equal to the dimensions given of it by the early geographers and historians. On leaving these, we came out on a dusty plain, and soon after noon we reached the first stage, or "Konauk," as it is called, at a tolerably large village, called Karagoash. We had passed in the way two streams of water, coming down from the eastern mountains, running through the site of Nineveh, and discharging themselves into the Tigris; and we had seen, to the eastward of us, or on our left, several small places, the names of which I could not learn. In this village of Karagoash, all the houses were constructed of sun-dried brick, cemented with mud, exactly like the masonry seen in the section of the mound at Tal Hermoosh, and thought to be the remains of some of the old dwellings of the Ninevites. This, indeed, must have always been, and will, no doubt, always continue to be, the style of building used by the poor of this country, from the great expense of procuring stone, and the facility of raising a habitation of earth. Stone, it is true, is to be had, but not from a less distance than ten or twelve miles, which is that of the nearest range of mountains on the east; and as we have seen, at Mousul, the marble or veined gypsum, brought from the hills to the northward of that city, is but sparingly used, even in the houses of the rich, for door-frames, pillars, &c. As these are permanent causes which influence the manner of building in the present day, so the same causes prevailed in the earliest periods, and naturally produced the same effects. Thus, besides the visible remains of such brick-work at Nineveh, we find an allusion to this mode of building in the Prophet's proclamation of its fall.* Among the houses of Karagoash, which are all of sun-dried bricks, there are some large ones, with a hollow rail-work of plaster carried around the terraces on the flat roof; but the greater part of the dwellings are small huts, with conical roofs of mud, looking like clusters of large bee-hives. The inhabitants are chiefly Christian, and are of the Syrian church; among themselves, they speak the Syriac language only; but they address themselves to strangers both in Arabic and Turkish. Their occupations are chiefly pastoral and agricultural, but they live in general in a state of great poverty. We were received here by the "Seroodjee Bashi," or Head of the Saddlers, as a keeper of post-horses for the government is here called, and treated by him and his attendants with an extraordinary degree of respect. A room was appropriated expressly to our accommodation, and this was spread out with carpets and cushions for our repose. Pipes and coffee were also served to us, and a number of dishes were expeditiously prepared; but as Jonas still delayed to join us, Ali, who was the younger of the two, did not feel himself at liberty to partake of them without waiting yet longer for his companion. We waited here at least two hours for this Jonas, who, it was said, was detained in dalliance with a young wife to whom he had been newly married at Mousul, and who was unwilling to part with him. The hard-riding life that this Tartar led, in constantly repeated journeys from one extremity of the empire to another, by no means unfitted him, it would seem, for softer pleasures; for, to fulfil both the law and the prophets, he possessed his full number of four legal wives, who were judiciously distributed along his usual route, the handsomest living at Constantinople, the oldest at Diarbekr, * "Draw thee waters for the siege; fortify thy strong holds, go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.”—Nahum, c. iii. v. 14. the youngest at Mousul, and the richest at Bagdad: so that he had beauty and wealth to solace him at the extremes of his journeys, and staid age and youth to comfort him on his way. Our patience being exhausted in hopeless waiting for his arrival, we partook of our meal without him, and, after another pipe, mounted fresh horses, and set out on our way. We had now two horsemen as drivers, who each led two other horses, lightly laden with the packets, &c., of which Ali had before taken care; so that the number of our horses was now eight, and of drivers only four. It must have been about three o'clock when we started from this village, from which we went in a south-south-east direction, travelling at the rate of about six miles an hour. At four, we crossed a large clear stream, which was so deep as to be barely fordable; and at five we went over another similar one. These were both called Kauther, or Kauzir Sou, and were said to be two branches that came from the mountains of Koordistan to the north-east of us, when, uniting into one stream a little to the south-west, it discharged its waters into the Tigris. In the latest and largest map accompanying the Geographical Memoir on the Countries between the Euphrates and Indus, by Macdonald Kinneir, the station of Karakawh is omitted, though it is mentioned in the memoir itself as being four farsangs, or about fifteen miles, from Mousul.* The courses of the streams here enumerated, as crossed since leaving that place, are also very inaccurately deli * "D'Altoun-Kopri, en suivant la direction du nord, en arrive à Erbil (Arbelles) après un trajet de dix lieues. Cette ville est située sur un monticule qui domine une vaste étendu de terrain, dont les productions sont les mêmes que celles du district de Kerkouk. Erbil, si renommée par la victoire qu'Alexandre remporta dans ses plaines sur l'armée de Darius, est regardée comme une des plus fortes places du Pachalik de Bagdad; elle est gouvernée par un bey, ou lieutenant, et elle a un château et plusieurs manufactures des étoffes en laine et en coton. Un canal assez large en fertilise le terroir, et ses habitans montrent aux voyageurs curieux qui en parcourent les environs, plusieurs ruines d'anciens châteaux, qu'ils supposent avoir été bâtis par les monarques Persans de la dernière dynastie.”—Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, pp. 85, 86. neated, and the two branches of the Kauzir Sou, or Hazir Sou, are confounded with the Greater Zab. The Hazir Sou of this map is, no doubt, the ancient Bumadis, or Bumade, or Bumallus, by all of which names it occurs in the ancient geographers and historians;* but this is certain, that the two branches or arms of it, which we crossed, are distinct from the Greater Zab, according to all modern descriptions of that river. It was on these wide plains, on the banks of the Bumadis, that Darius was encamped, just previous to the fatal battle of Gaugamela. Soon after Alexander, in his expedition into the East, had crossed the Tigris without opposition, the capture of a body of cavalry belonging to the Persians furnished him with the intelligence of Darius being so near him. The troops were allowed to repose but a few days, and recruit their strength and spirits, both worn and exhausted by their passage through the burning plains of Mesopotamia, when Alexander led them on again in person, and halted within sixty stadia of the Persian army. These are the preliminary particulars, which are given by Arrian;† and it is to be inferred, from Diodorus Siculus, who also mentions the two armies being encamped in the presence of each other, that the battle between them was fought two days after the Macedonians had passed the river; which, if marching days only were meant, without counting those of rest, would agree pretty accurately with the distance. The learned author of the "Critical Inquiry into the Historians of the Life of Alexander the Great," has very justly exposed the contradictions of Quintus Curtius, who, in his account of this battle, seems to have sacrificed the sober consistency of the historian to a vain display of his powers as a rhetorician. On the plain, as he tells us, where the two armies encountered, neither bush nor tree * Quintus Curtius, lib. iv. c. 9, &c. |