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animated scene, which is very well described, both by Mr. Buckingham and by the artist who has drawn the spirited vignette which heads the chapter.

It was near midnight when we reached a marshy ground, in which a clear stream was flowing along, through beds of tall and thick rushes, but so hidden by these, that the noise of its flow was heard long before the stream itself could be seen. From the length of the march, and the exhausting heat of the atmosphere, even at night, the horses were exceedingly thirsty. Their impatient restlessness, evinced by their tramping, neighing, and eager impatience to rush all to one particular point, gave us, indeed, the first indications of our approach to water, which was perceptible to their stronger scent long before it was even heard by us. On reaching the brink of this stream, for which purpose we had been forcibly turned aside, by the ungovernable fury of the animals, to the southward of our route, the banks were found to be so high above the surface of the water, that the horses could not reach it to drink. Some, more impatient than the rest, plunged themselves and their riders at once into the current, and, after being led swimming to a less elevated part of the bank, over which they could mount, were extricated with considerable difficulty; while two of the horses of the caravan, who were more heavily laden than the others, by carrying the baggage as well as the persons of their riders, were drowned. The stream was narrow, but deep, and had a soft muddy bottom, in which another of the horses became so fastly stuck, that he was suffocated in a few minutes. The camels marched patiently along the edge of the bank, as well as those persons of the caravan who were provided with skins and other vessels containing small supplies of water; but the horses could not, by all the power of their riders, be kept from the stream, any more than the crowd of thirsty pilgrims, who, many of them having no small vessels to dip up the water from the brook, followed the example of the impatient horses, and plunged at once into the current. For myself, I experienced more difficulty than I can well describe, in keeping my own horse from breaking down the loose earth of the bank on which he stood, and plunging in with the others; it being as much as all my strength of arm could accomplish to keep him back from the brink, while he tramped, and snorted, and neighed, and reared himself erect on his hinder legs, to express the intensity of his suffering from thirst. An Indian fakir, who was of the hadjee's party, being near me at this moment of my difficulty, and when I was deliberating in my mind whether I should not risk less in throwing myself off my horse and letting him follow the bent of his desires, as I began to despair of mastering him much longer, took from me my tin drinking cup, which was a kind of circular and shallow basin, capable of holding only about a pint; this having two small holes in the sides for the purpose of slinging it over the shoulder on the march, longer pieces of cord were fastened to the short ones before affixed to it, and having now dismounted, by letting go the bridle, and sliding back over the haunches of the horse while he was in one of his erect positions from rearing, we succeeded in coaxing him into a momentary tranquillity by the caresses and tender expressions which all Arab horses understand so well; and with this shallow bason, thus slung in cords, we drew up from the stream as much as the vessel would hold, and in as quick succession as practicable. But even when full, the cup would hardly contain sufficient to moisten the horse's mouth; and as, at some times, it came up only half full, and at others was entirely emptied by the impatience of the horse knocking it out of the giver's hand, we let it down and drew it up, I am certain, more than a hundred times, till our arms were tired; and even then we had but barely satisfied our own thirst, and done nothing, comparatively, to allay that of the poor animal, whose sufferings, in common with nearly all the others of the caravan, were really painful to witness. This scene, which, amidst the obscurity of the night, the cries of the animals, the shouting and quarrelling of the people, and the indistinct and perhaps exaggerated apprehensions of danger, from a totally unexpected cause, had assumed an almost awful character, lasted for upwards of an hour; and so intense was the first impulse of self-preservation, to allay the burning rage of thirst, that, during all this time, the Yezredis were entirely forgotten, and as absent from our thoughts as if they had never once been even heard of.

At length, on the 5th July, Mr. Buckingham arrived at Mousul, which may be considered the end of his dangers, if not of his toils. He was received with great honour, as an English traveller, by the pacha, who appointed two of his silver-sticks to show him the town.

Chapter XV. is a description of Mousul.It. is a considerable place,

and possesses baths, bazaars, and coffee-houses, the great public buildings of the east, in great number and splendour. It is supposed, by Gibbon, to have been the western suburb of Ninus, the city which succeeded Ninevehi. The ruins of Nineveh lie along the eastern and opposite bank of the Tigris. The present population of Mousul is about one hundred thousand.

Mr. Buckingham had pushed on to the town before the arrival of a the caravan. When it entered Mousul, its final destination, he was witness of the demonstrations of affection and respect with which his old friend, the hadjee, was received by his towns' and kinsmen.

In the evening, the caravan which I accompanied from Aleppo, made its entry into Mousul, and so great was the consideration enjoyed here by the Hadjee Abd-el-Rakhman, that a crowd of his friends and dependants went out beyond the walls of the city to greet his arrival, and to bring him into his own house, amid their acclamations of welcome. As we met these on our return from an excursion round the town, I dispensed with the further attendance of the pasha's cawasses, and joined the party who were going to the Hadjee's house.

On our reaching this, we were all received with great respect by the servants and slaves in waiting; but the Hadjee and his nephew were almost worshipped by them; having their knees embraced, and the hems of their garments kissed by the crowds who pressed around them as they entered the court of their dwelling.

The house itself, which was now quite new, was esteemed to be inferior to none in the city, excepting the residence of the Pasha, and, indeed, its interior decorations were as costly as those of any private abode that I had seen in the East, excepting only those of the rich Jews of Damascus. This house had been begun by the Hadjee just before his setting out on his pilgrimage, and, during the two years of his absence, it had been completed by the confidential slave or chief steward of his household. While the host and his nephew retired to receive the welcome of the females of the family, all the strangers were shewn over the dwelling, and every thing was found to be in the most perfect order for the lord's reception. The Hadjee and his nephew soon returned to us, both dressed in garments of white, all perfectly new, and prepared during their absence, to clothe them on the day of their return.

Chapter XVI. is entitled, Visit to the Ruins of Nineveh, and Journey from Mousul to the river Lycus. The Tigris is crossed by a bridge of boats.

Descending through the town to the river, we crossed it, over a bridge of boats, which was just one hundred and fifty horse paces in length. The boats were badly constructed, and not being fastened together in the most secure manner, the whole bridge was set in motion by the least agitation of the water. They were moored head and stern by iron chains, and were sharp at each end. The rate of the current in mid-channel seemed at present not to exceed two miles an hour; but it was said by all, that this was the slowest rate at which it ran, and that it sometimes possessed three times its present rapidity. The water was nowhere deeper than from three to four fathoms, and it was of a yellow muddy colour throughout; though it soon became clear by being suffered to rest, and was at all seasons fine and sweet to the taste.

The remains of Nineveh, the "exceeding great city of three days' journey" in length, seem to be nothing more than a few mounds and scattered ruins, extending along the banks of the river.

Nineveh is said to have been surrounded by walls that were a hundred feet in height, and of a sufficient breadth for three chariots to pass along it together abreast, as well as to have been defended by fifteen hundred towers along these walls, which were each of them two hundred feet high. If the walls of Babylon, however, which were comparatively of so much more modern erection, are thought to have left no trace remaining, those of Nineveh may well have totally disappeared.

From the height on which we stood, extending our view to a considerable distance in every direction, we could not certainly perceive any marked delineation of one great outline; but mounds and smaller heaps of ruins were scattered widely over the plain, sufficient to prove that the site of the original city occupied a vast extent, notwithstand

ing that some of the latest visitors to this place have thought that the remains were confined to the few mounds of the centre only.

From Mousul Mr. Buckingham rode post with the Tatars. They crossed the celebrated plain where the fatal battle of Gaugamela was fought, between Alexander and Darius. The Lycus was crossed on rafts, sustained in the water by inflated skins.-[See Xenophon Anab. b. i. p. 60, in Spelman.]

Chapter XVII. describes the course from Ain Koura, by the ancient Arbela, to Kerkook. The couriers whom Mr. Buckingham accompanied, are noisy riotous people, who give themselves great airs, and treat the poor people who are compelled by the government order to serve them, with the utmost insolence, and frequently violence. This is a description of the behaviour of one of Mr. Buckingham's companions at Ain Koura:

While fresh horses were saddling, the Tartars and myself sat down to a breakfast of roasted fowls, cream, honey, and sweatmeats; while a man stood at each of our elbows with a bottle of strong arrack, and a cup to supply us at our pleasure. It is difficult to describe how much these villagers, who were all Syrian Christians, seemed to stand in awe of the Turkish letter-carriers, on whom they waited. There stood around us not less than forty persons, some bearing full and others empty dishes; some having water-pots and basons ready for washing-one holding the soap and another the towel the humbler ones among them being content to have the boots of the riders ready for them when they rose from the carpet; and all, indeed, seeming anxious to make themselves in some way or other subservient to the pleasure of these lordly tyrants.

Large doses of arrack were swallowed, both by Jonas and Ali, though the former seemed to pride himself on his pre-eminence in this, as well as in all other respects; and, even at this early hour of the morning, he emptied two full bottles for his share. I was myself obliged to drink, almost to intoxication, though a much less quantity than that swallowed by them would have disabled me from proceeding; but the haughty Turk honoured me with his permission to drink in his presence, and this was granted as a favour, which it would have been an affront of the highest kind

to refuse.

We had no sooner descended into the court, than the effects of these exhilarating draughts began to manifest themselves pretty unequivocally. Jonas found fault with the horse that had been saddled for him, and insisted on its being the worst of the stud, though it was an enviably fine creature, and worth any three of the others put together. Ali, not to be behind his comrade, had all the baggage-horses loaded afresh, and changed his own saddle to two or three different horses in succession, until he condemned them all as the worst group of animals that God had ever assembled together since the brute creation were first named by Adam.

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The poor Syrians bore these vexations with so much patience, that they might be said literally to have fulfilled the injunction, "If a man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also." The very want of some resistance to this treatment was, however, a cause of fresh vexation to the Tartars; since they inferred from it, that their tyranny had not been felt as an annoyance; so that, handling their whips, one of them exclaimed, " What! you will not be angry, then. By God, but we will make ye so! and laid about him with the fury of a maniac. Ali contented himself with the use of the whip only, saying, that as they were bullocks, and mules, and asses, and brute beasts, this was the only punishment fit for them; but Jonas, having received some indignity from a young lad, who spit in his face, and ran off faster than the other could pursue him, drew his yatagan, and chased those near him with this naked dagger in his hand, till they flew in every direction; and he, at last, in the rage of disappointment, threw it with all his force amidst a group of three or four who were near him, and shivered its ivory handle by the fall into twenty pieces. The only regret that he expressed was, that the blade had not buried itself in some of their hearts, instead of the weapon thus falling uselessly on the ground. After such conduct, none of the people could be prevailed on to approach us, though at least a hundred villagers stood aloof gazing at these two enraged Turks, and flying at the least symptom of pursuit. We were, therefore, obliged to finish the saddling of our own horses, and

to mount, and leave the leaders of the baggage-horses to follow us when their fears had subsided.

Chapter XVIII. takes us to Kerkook, by Kiffree, to Kara Tuppe, or the Black Hill.-From Mousul to Bagdad the route lays pretty nearly parallel with the Tigris in its descent. On reaching the town of Kiffree, Mr. Buckingham and one of the couriers were deserted by the principal and noisiest of the Tatars, who went off before the others had risen, with the only horse that could be procured.

While waiting at Kiffree for some means of conveyance, another Tatar arrived, accompanied by two Europeans, one of them the most extraordinary of travellers that ever set out in search of adventures.

Over our afternoon pipes, and while the Turks beside us were sleeping away the heat of the day, I began to learn more of my companions, who had thus suddenly come upon us, and who now very agreeably relieved the tedium of our detention. Both of them were Italians; the eldest, named Padre Camilla di Jesu, was a friar of the Carmelite order, who had been many years resident at Bagdad, and was now returning to Rome, by way of Constantinople; the other was a young man who had gone originally from Italy to Constantinople, where he had resided some time with his father, a merchant of that city. Having heard, from some of the distant traders with whom his father corresponded, of the fame of Damascus, he solicited permission to make a journey to that city, and it was granted to him, under the hope of his being able to transact some useful business there, at the same time that he gratified his curiosity. The most singular part of the history of this young man's travels was, however, that he went from Constantinople to Alexandria in Egypt, believing that to be the straightest and shortest road to Damascus; and, after landing there, he went up to Cairo by the Nile, under the impression that that city was also in the direct road to the place of his destination. When he had at length reached Damascus, by this circuitous route, having gone from Cairo to Jerusalem by the desert of Suez, one would have thought that the recollection of this error would have taught him to make more careful inquiries regarding the relative positions of places he might have to visit in future. But it appears he never did discover that he had not come by the nearest way, believing always, on the contrary, that his voyage to Alexandria by sea, and his journey from Cairo to Damascus by land, had been in nearly a straight line. It was thus, that when he was about to leave Damascus, on his return to Constantinople, having heard of great caravans going from the former place to Bagdad every year, and being aware of others coming also from Bagdad to Constantinople in about the same period of time, he conceived that these caravans must be the same; and concluding from this that Bagdad lay in his direct road home, he had actually journeyed from Damascus to that place over the Syrian Desert, in the hottest season of the year, without ever once asking, during the whole forty days of his route, in which direction Constantinople lay!

The whole of this was narrated to me with such an apparent unconsciousness of its absurdity, that, incredulous as I was at first, as to such ignorance being possible, I was at length compelled to believe it really to have happened as described, especially when I heard this young man affirm his conviction, that the distance from Constantinople to Bagdad, by the way of Cairo and Damascus, could not be less than fifty thousand miles; while that between Bagdad and Constantinople, by the way he was now returning, could not exceed five hundred; adding that, for his part, he could not conceive why the longer route was ever taken, since it was as disagreeable as it was distant; but, at the same time, shrewdly suggesting that there might be reasons for this course, known only to him from whom no secrets are hid.

Chapter XIX. from Kara Tuppe takes Mr. Buckingham to the storied city of Bagdad. The remaining part of the journey is effected by the assistance of a merchant, returning to Bagdad. Mr. Buckingham is sometimes accommodated with a horse, and sometimes with a 1 aden mule; and the latter animal causes him several awkward overthrows, and doleful adventures. The final one is, that being left behind by the party, he arrives at the gate of Bagdad alone, where he is stopped, and subjected to very grievous humiliations.

Being arrested at the gate by the public officers stationed there to guard against the entrance or exit of contraband commodities, I was made to dismount, for the purpose of their examining the lading of my mule; but having said that neither the animal nor the goods belonged to me, I was detained until the owner of the beast should come to answer for himself. This was the Hadjee Habeeb, who I had reason to believe had pushed in among the earliest of the crowd, probably himself carrying contraband articles, and thus forcing their entrance. My belief that he had preceded me was not admitted, however, as a sufficient reason for my being suffered to proceed; neither would the officers at the gate examine the lading in my presence, as I had admitted it was not my own, nor would they suffer me to abandon the animal to the care of another, and go my way.

I continued to wait, therefore, very humbly at the gate of this great city, sitting cross-legged on the dusty ground, and holding the halter of my mule, who continued to be too refractory and ungovernable to the last to be left quietly to himself; and had lighted my pipe, to lessen the tedium of this detention; when a Turkish soldier impudently snatched from me, and extinguished it, asking me, at the same time, how I dared be guilty of such a breach of decorum just as the Pasha was about to pass.

Presently, this distinguished personage entered, preceded by a troop of his Georgian mamilouk guards, all gaily dressed, and mounted on fine and well-furnished horses. A troop of foot soldiers followed, all of them having English muskets, and many of them English military coats, which they purchase with the other worn-out garments of the British resident's guards; but their head-dress was a huge fur cap, of a semiglobular form and savage appearance, and their whole deportment exhibited the total absence of discipline or uniformity. A few drums and reed-pipes were the only instruments of music, and the sounds of these were far from dignified or agreeable. Nothing, however, could surpass the awe which the passing-by of the Pasha seemed to inspire in all who witnessed it, though this is no doubt a frequent occurrence. There were two large coffee-houses near the gate, the benches of which were filled with hundreds of spectators; yet not a pipe was lighted, not a cup of coffee served, and not a word spoken, during this awful moment. Every one rose, and either made an inclination of the body, or lifted his hands to his lips, his forehead, and his heart, in token of respect. The Pasha, though he seemed scarcely to turn his head or his eyes from a straight-forward view, nevertheless returned these salutations with great grace, and every thing was conducted with the utmost gravity and decorum.

At the close of this procession, Dr. Hine and Mr. Bellino, the physician and secretary of the British resident at Bagdad, passed close by me, on horseback, as I sat smothered in the very dust of their horses' hoofs; but though I knew them at the moment to be the persons they were, from their dresses, and from hearing them converse in English as they passed, and though I felt the humiliation to which I was reduced as extremely galling, yet I forbore to make myself known to them under such circumstances and in such a crowd.

When the cavalcade had entirely passed by, and every one returned again to the care of his own concerns, I pressed hard to be released from the unreasonable and hopeless bondage in which I was thus held; but entreaty procured me only abuse, and the satisfaction of being thought an idle vagabond who wished to abandon the property of the man on whose beast I rode, with a view, no doubt, to escape from paying him for its hire. Altercations, hard words, and, at last, on my part also, threats and abuse, succeeded, however, in effecting what I believe gentler terms would never have done; till, at length, being able to bear with it no longer, I drew my pistol from my girdle, and daring any one at the peril of his life to molest me, I led off my mule in triumph, amid the execrations of the guards, for my insolence, but cheered by the shouts and applause of the rabble, for my defiance of a class on whom they look with the hatred of an oppressed race towards their tyrants.

I took the animal to the Konauk Tartar Agasi, or head quarters of the couriers, where, on representing myself to be an Englishman, (of which the guards at the gate knew nothing,) I was treated with great respect, and suffered to leave the beast, to be delivered to its owner, without any further care of mine. As I waited here until the Tartar Jonas, who had deserted us on the road, was sent for-coffee, pipes, and sherbert were served to me, and I was entertained with the most extravagant praises, which these men bestowed on the character of the English generally, and of their illustrious representative at Bagdad in particular.

This is, in fact, the term of Mr. Buckingham's adventures, and here we shall take our leave of him. There are several subsequent

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