narrow slip of land formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Beyond this point, the navigation is deemed unsafe for single boats, owing to the lawless tribes of thievish Arabs which infest the banks.

Leaving the Euphrates to the West, we proceeded up the Tigris, where we soon found ourselves in a current running between six and seven knots an hour, which fully proved to us the appropriate name of Teer (arrow) which the ancient Persians gave to this river on account of the rapidity of its course. Two miles beyond Koorna, the plantations of date-trees, which had hitherto covered the banks, ceased, and the country on both sides was overflowed. We landed in the afternoon on the west bank to shoot, and walked several miles : the ground was very wet, and the state of the vegetation indicated little fertility. This destitute place, which is called Il Jezeerah (the island), is generally held to be the seat of Paradise.'

We are quite aware that some learned men have maintained this strangely absurd opinion; but, were it worth while to enter upon the grave confutation of such an hypothesis, we might observe, that Moses says, four rivers went out of Paradise, and here two of them end: all the learning or logic in the world will not avail to prove, that the mouth of a river is the same as the head. There is something more plausible in Reland's hypothesis, who places the site of Eden in Armenia, whence issue the heads of the Tigris and the Euphrates; while Major Wilford has supported with much learning and ingenuity, the opinion, that its true situation was in that mountainous tract which extends from Candahar to the Ganges. It is not very surprising, that a question relating to antidiluvian geography, should be involved in some uncertainty.

Captain Keppel, however, pleased himself with the idea of killing his first bird in the garden of Eden; and where Nimrod once hunted tigers, the party had excellent sport in shooting hares, partridges, and snipes. In one place, however, where the boat stopped to take in fuel, they put up game of a different description,-a lion, who was sleeping in the jungle, and who, on being disturbed, fortunately stole away. This spot is described as quite living with the immense quantities of ani⚫mals of all descriptions."

At every step, our trackers put up pelicans, swans, geese, ducks, and snipes; numbers of hogs were seen galloping about in every direction; a lioness strolled towards our boat, and stood staring at us for two or three seconds; when within thirty yards, Mr. Hamilton and myself both fired at her, but, as we were loaded with small shot, we did her no injury; the noise of our guns made her turn quietly round, and she weut away as leisurely as she came. We saw this afternoon a numerous flock of small birds, which presented the ap

pearance of a large whirlwind, and literally darkened the air in their flight. Both Mr. Lamb and Mr. Hart had seen the same in India, and told me that they were birds of the ortolan species.'

At Coote, a wretched collection of mud huts, 120 miles from Bussorah, and reckoned half way to Bagdad, (although it is twice that distance by the tortuous course of the river,) Mr. Hamilton left the party, and proceeded through the desert, among the hospitable Arab tribes, who seem to respect those that trust them openly, and plunder those that attempt to steal through their territory. In the dry season, the journey is performed in thirty-six hours; it is necessary, however, to carry provisions and water both for riders and horses; but at this time of the year (March), 'abundance of water is found in the desert, as ' well as numerous encampments of Arabs, so that the travel'ler may proceed at his leisure.' After being, like Jacob, bitten by the frost by night, and consumed with drought by day, Mr. Hamilton, on the morning of the 20th, arrived at the renowned city of the khalifs. Our Author, who stuck by the boat, passed the remains of Ctesiphon and Seleucia, and reached Bagdad on the 21st, the fifth day after leaving Coote.

A traveller coming by water from Bussorah, is likely to be much struck with Bagdad on his first arrival. Having been for some time past accustomed to see nothing but a desert-there being no cultiva tion on that side of the city by which he arrives-he does not observe any change that would warn him of his approach to a populous city. He continues winding up the Tigris through all its numerous headlands, when this once renowned city of gardens bursts suddenly on his sight. Its first view justifies the idea that he is approaching the residence of the renowned Caliph, Haroun Alraschid, in the height of its splendour; a crowd of early associations rushes across his mind, and seems to reduce to reality scenes which, from boyish recollections, are so blended with magic and fairy lore, that he may for a moment imagine himself arrived at the City of the Enchanters.

'Bagdad is surrounded by a battlemented wall; the part towards the palace, as was the case in ancient Babylon, is ornamented with glazed tiles of various colours. The graceful minarets, and the beautifully shaped domes of the mosques, are sure to attract his eye. One or two of these are gaudily decorated with glazed tiles of blue, white, and yellow, which, formed into a mosaic of flowers, reflect the rays of the sun: the variegated foliage of the trees of these numerous gardens, which most probably have given the name to the city, serve as a beautiful back-ground to the picture. Thus far the traveller is allowed to indulge his reverie; but on entering the walls, his vision is dispelled.

The walls are of mud; the streets, which are scarcely wide enough to allow two persons to pass, are so empty, that he could almost fancy the inhabitants had died of the plague: he looks upwards-two dead walls meet his eyes; he now enters the bazaar, and finds that he has

no reason to complain of want of population; a mass of dirty wretches render his road almost impassable; with some difficulty he jostles through a succession of narrow cloistered passages, traversing each other at right angles; the light, which is admitted by holes a foot in diameter from the top, gives to the sallow features of the crowd below, a truly consumptive appearance, agreeing well with the close, hot, fulsome smell of bad ventilation., The traveller, by this time, has seen sufficient to cure him of the dreams of earlier life; and, on arriving at his destination, he makes a woful comparison between the reality of the scenes and the picture imagination had drawn. Such, or nearly such, was the impression first made by my arrival in Bagdad.'

The gardens, which commence within half a mile of the walls of the town, extend four or five miles along the water's edge: they are separated from each other by mud walls, and present, like most oriental gardens, a confused assemblage of shrubs and fruit-trees. A small door opens from each enclosure towards the river, which is represented as affording a dangerous facility for intrigue.

In Constantinople, Englishmen who have engaged in this description of adventure, have disappeared, and never been heard of afterwards. In Bagdad, there does not appear to be so much danger. We heard of some of our own countrymen having escaped, even after detection, though, in some instances, the female, and some of the principal abettors of the intrigue, have fallen victims to their imprudence.'

We regret that our countrymen should find no better employment in foreign countries, than engaging in adventures of so disreputable and criminal a description, in which the life of at least one party is the forfeit of detection- the female.' This seems rather a favourite word with our Author, who speaks again and again of the Bagdad females,' &c. We are astonished that any well educated man should fall into this Cockney vulgarism of applying to the loveliest part of creation, the phrase of the zoologist in speaking of the brutes. Had he spoken of the Bagdad males, we should have known at once that dogs, cats, or donkeys were intended. In the name of propriety and decency, let man be man, and woman woman,— τα σύκα σύκα, την σκάφην σκαφην λεγων,

They

Our Author's visit to Babylon was very short. breasted the Mujillebe at eight o'clock on the morning of the 26th., and left the field of ruins on the morning of the 28th., having spent half the intermediate time in Hillah. At Mumliheh, they had been at a loss for tools to dig with: here, they had instruments, but wanted inclination. A living dog,' the wise man says, 'is better than a dead lion;' but every rule has its exceptions; and a stone lion from Babylon is worth all the living dogs in Bagdad. Our Travellers were on the right

scent; they scratched for about two hours at the Hanging Gardens, and turned out a black marble lion striding over a man, which, our Author ventures to suggest, might have refer*ence to Daniel in the lion's den.' Had they persevered with the like tact and good fortune, who knows but they might have discovered the identical idol of Bel and the dragon, the equestrian statue of Semiramis herself, the Sub-amnian tunnel, and all the rest of it. But they wanted-time! Why, then, did they stay so long at Bussorah and Bagdad, where there was little to be seen and nothing to be done? We hate these flying visits. Babylon was overturned three and twenty centuries ago we should now like it to be upturned; and think that the public money might be quite as well employed in sending out a commission of savans for that purpose, as in sending poor fellows out in search of the nearest way to the North Pole, to be drawn over the ice by dogs for six weeks, and find their way back as they may. Surely, Mr. Barrow, or Mr. Gilbert Davis Giddy, would rather lift a brick laid by Nimrod, who shook hands with Noah, whose grandfather could remember Adam,-than sledge it through ice and snow, to swing a stick on Boreas's spindlepoint, eat seal's fish-flesh, and drink whale's milk, and return, re infectâ, frost-bitten and penny less, with nothing for their pains but permission to publish another insipid quarto of adventures and peradventures.-Let us be thankful, however, for what these gentlemen have presented to us. Besides a wood-cut representation of the statue of the said lion, and of the solitary cedar still standing on the site of the Hanging Gardens,-the only tree of the kind, but one, throughout Irak Arabia,—we have drawings (we presume by Capt. Hart) of devices on three cylinders, brought from Babylon, and presented by Capt. Keppel to the British Museum. They are spirited and curious. Similar ones have been found in the mound erected over the Persians who fell at Marathon, and they are supposed to have been worn as amulets. The character of these devices is decidedly Persian, resembling that of the sculptures at Takht-e-Jemsheed. One man has the winged circle at his back, but the ferooher, or spirit, has fled,-whether through the dilapidation of time or the carelessness of the artist, we cannot tell. A few more such specimens would enable us to form some competent idea of the state of ancient art in Babylonia, of which, as contra-distinguished from Persian art, we as yet know nothing.

On their return to Bagdad, our Travellers fell in with Mr. Wolf, the Missionary to the Jews, who had just arrived from Aleppo after a long and arduous journey across the desert. Capt. Keppel says:

• We were much interested in our new acquaintance, who, in the course of conversation, evinced an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and shewed such enthusiasm in the laborious and perilous office in which he is employed, that, though we may not agree with him in the efficacy of his mission, few can help admiring his unaffected piety and the sincerity of his religious zeal.'

On the 8th of April, our Author had the satisfaction of finding himself outside the walls of Bagdad, on the road to Kermanshah, and after traversing for five hours a barren waste, reached Benee Sad. The advanced guard of Mohummud Ali Meerza, the late prince of Kermanshah, marched as far as this place on their road to Bagdad; and they had left striking proofs of their visit in the ruinous and desolate state of the town.' The head quarters of the prince were established for some time at Bacoubah, which our Travellers reached the second night, and which they found also in ruins. The cholera morbus, breaking out among the troops, occasioned the precipitate return of the army to Kermanshah, where the prince died shortly after. The time he wasted at this station, saved the pashalik. Had he marched imediately to Bagdad,' remarks Capt. Keppel, it is the general opinion, that he would have obtained possession of it; so great was the terror produced by his previous successes. Seven miles E. of Bacoubah, the party came upon ruins which our Author considers to be those of Artemita, the favourite residence of Chosroes. D'Anville places it near a town called Descara, and Kinneir at Kisra Shereen, a ruined city in the Hamerine mountains. At the former place, after the most careful investigation, no traces of an ancient site could be discovered; and the latter, it is remarked, is at too great a distance from Ctesiphon, and in too elevated a situation, to admit of being identified with Destagerda. The third night, they reached Shehreban, a place of considerable extent, which had been recently sacked and ruined by the Coords. Here, they wandered through the desolate streets for some time without finding a single inhabitant, till they came to a caravanserai, where they found a solitary individual, who informed them that all the inhabitants had fled.

This town was, not many months back, one of the most populous and thriving in the pashalik of Bagdad: now, the whole population consists of about three families. The mosque, which is very large, has been spared by these marauders, probably from a religious feeling. The same inducement has made them leave the caravanserai untouched, for the use of their countrymen on a pilgrimage to the tomb of their saint. Whatever may have been the motive, the effect of these three buildings in preservation, only serves to complete the picture of desolation by the contrast they bear to the rest of the city.