Part 23 (1/2)
The vast trade, that rendered Babylon the gathering-place of men from all parts of the known world, and supplied her with luxuries from the remotest climes, had at the same time the effect of corrupting the manners of her people, and producing that general profligacy and those effeminate customs which mainly contributed to her fall. The description given by Herodotus of the state of the population of the city when under the dominion of the Persian kings, is fully sufficient to explain the cause of her speedy decay and ultimate ruin. The account of the Greek historian fully tallies with the denunciations of the Hebrew prophets against the sin and wickedness of Babylon. Her inhabitants had gradually lost their warlike character. When the Persians broke into their city they were revelling in debauchery and l.u.s.t; and when the Macedonian conqueror appeared at their gates, they received with indifference the yoke of a new master.
It is not difficult to account for the rapid decay of the country around Babylon. As the inhabitants deserted the city, the ca.n.a.ls were neglected.
When once those great sources of fertility were choked up, the plains became a wilderness. Upon the waters conveyed by their channels to the innermost parts of Mesopotamia depended not only the harvests, the gardens, and the palm groves, but the very existence of the numerous towns and villages far removed from the river banks. They soon turned to mere heaps of earth and rubbish. Vegetation ceased, and the plains, parched by the burning heat of the sun, were ere long once again a vast arid waste.
Such has been the history of Babylon. Her career was equally short and splendid; and although she has thus perished from the face of the earth, her ruins are still cla.s.sic, indeed sacred, ground. The traveller visits, with no common emotion, those shapeless heaps, the scene of so many great and solemn events. In this plain, according to tradition, the primitive families of our race first found a resting-place. Here Nebuchadnezzar boasted of the glories of his city, and was punished for his pride. To these deserted halls were brought the captives of Judaea. In them Daniel, undazzled by the glories around him, remained steadfast to his faith, rose to be a governor amongst his rulers, and prophesied the downfall of the kingdom. There was held Belshazzar's feast, and was seen the writing upon the wall. Between those crumbling mounds Cyrus entered the neglected gates. Those ma.s.sive ruins cover the spot where Alexander died.
Soon after my arrival at Hillah, the caravan of the Hadj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca, pa.s.sed through the town on its way to Baghdad. The holy places had this year been visited by the cholera, and of the many who had crossed the Desert few had survived. In the crowd that had a.s.sembled on the high road were mingled scenes of grief and joy. The mournful wail of the women was heard above the merry laugh of those who had again found their friends. The wild Bedouins of Nejd, who had guided and protected the pilgrims during their arduous journey, pa.s.sed through the throng on their weary dromedaries.
After a lapse of some years the annual hadj from the south of Turkey and Persia had been able to follow the direct road to Mecca across the desert of Nejd and the interior of Arabia. Since, Ibn Res.h.i.+d, a chief of the Gebel Shammar, has by his courage and abilities acquired the whole of that district; and has rendered himself sufficiently powerful to hold in check the various tribes which surround it. Pilgrims under his protection could, therefore, again venture to take the shortest road to Mecca. He undertook to furnish them with camels, and to answer for their safety from Hillah to the holy cities and back.
The chief punctually fulfilled his engagement, and the caravan I have described was the first that had crossed the Desert for many years without accident or molestation. It was under the charge of Abd-ur-Rahman, a relation of Ibn Res.h.i.+d. I frequently saw this Sheikh during his short residence at Hillah, and he urged me to return with him to the Gebel Shammar. Zaid and several other Agayls offered to accompany me; and it was with great regret that I felt unable, on various accounts, to undertake a journey into a country so little known, and so interesting, as central Arabia. A better opportunity could scarcely have occurred for entering Nedjd.
Sheikh Abd-ur-Rahman described the Gebel Shammar as abounding in fertile valleys, where the Arabs had villages and cultivated lands. The inhabitants are of the same great tribe of Shammar as those who wander over the plains of Mesopotamia. Suttum told me that his family still possessed their gardens in the hills; and although, from long absence, their produce had been gathered by strangers, yet that he could by law at any time return and claim them.
Ibn Res.h.i.+d was described to me as a powerful, and for an Arab, an enlightened chief, who had restored security to the country, and who desired to encourage trade and the pa.s.sage of caravans through his territories. His mares and horses, collected from the tribes of central Arabia, were declared to excel all those of the Desert in beauty and in blood. Hawking and hunting are his favorite amus.e.m.e.nts, and game abounds in the hills and plains. Amongst the wild animals are lions, leopards, deer, and a kind of ox or large antelope, I could not learn exactly which, called Wothaiyah, said to have long spiral horns, and to be exceedingly fierce and dangerous.
I was a.s.sured that in the Gebel Shammar there are ruins of large cities, attributed by the Arabs to the Jews. Inscriptions in an unknown character are also said to exist on slabs of stone and on rocks. They may be that cla.s.s called Himyari, found in other parts of the Arabian peninsula.
About two hours and a half, or eight miles to the north-east of Hillah, a mound, scarcely inferior in size to those of Babylon, rises in the plain.
It is called El Hymer, meaning, according to the Arabs, the red, from its color. The ruin has a.s.sumed a pyramidal form, but it is evidently the remains of a solid square structure, consisting, like the Birs Nimroud, of a series of terraces or platforms. It may be conjectured, therefore, that it was a sacred edifice built upon the same general plan as all the temples of Babylonia and a.s.syria. The bas.e.m.e.nt or substructure appears to have been of sun-dried brick; the upper part, and probably the casing of the lower, of bricks burnt in the kiln. Many of the latter are inscribed with the name and t.i.tles of Nebuchadnezzar. Although the masonry is solid and firmly bound together, it is not united by a white cement like that of the Mujelibe. The same tenacious mud that was used for making the bricks has been daubed, as far as I could ascertain, between each layer. The ruin is traversed like the Birs by square holes to admit air.
Around the centre structure are scattered smaller mounds and heaps of rubbish, covered with the usual fragments of pottery, gla.s.s and bricks.
Opposite to the Mujelibe (or Kasr), on the western bank of the Euphrates, is a village called Anana, and near it a quadrangle of earthen ramparts, like the remains of a fortified inclosure. A large ma.s.s of brick masonry is still seen in the river bed when the stream is low. The inhabitants of the village brought me a fragment of black stone with a rosette ornament upon it, very a.s.syrian in character. With the exception of these remains, and the Birs Nimroud, there are scarcely any ruins of ancient buildings on the Arabian side of the Euphrates.
On the eastern bank low mounds covered with broken pottery and gla.s.s are found in almost every direction. One resembles another, and there is nothing either in their appearance or in their contents, as far as they have hitherto been ascertained, deserving of particular description. They only prove how vast and thriving the population of this part of Mesopotamia must at one time have been, and how complete is the destruction that has fallen upon this devoted land.
CHAPTER XXIV.
RUINS IN SOUTHERN MESOPOTAMIA.--DEPARTURE FROM HILLAH.--SAND-HILLS.--VILLAGES IN THE JEZIREH.--SHEIKH KARBOUL.--RUINS.--FIRST VIEW OF NIFFER.--THE MARSHES.--ARAB BOATS.--ARRIVE AT SOUK-EL-AFAIJ.--SHEIKH AGAB.--TOWN OF THE AFAIJ.--DESCRIPTION OF THE RUINS OF NIFFER.--EXCAVATIONS IN THE MOUNDS.--DISCOVERY OF COFFINS.--OF VARIOUS RELICS.--MR. LOFTUS'
DISCOVERIES AT WURKA.--THE ARAB TRIBES.--WILD BEASTS.--LIONS.--CUSTOMS OF THE AFAIJ.--LEAVE THE MARSHES.--RETURN TO BAGHDAD.--A MIRAGE.
The south of Mesopotamia abounds in extensive and important ruins, of which little is known. The country around them is inhabited by Arabs of the tribes of Rubbiyah and Ahl Maidan, notorious for their lawlessness, and scarcely more intelligent or human than the buffaloes which they tend.
One or two travellers have pa.s.sed these remains of ancient civilisation when journeying through the Jezireh, or have received descriptions of them from natives of the country. Mr. Loftus was the first to explore the most important. Being attached, as geologist, to the mission for the settlement of the boundaries between Persia and Turkey, he went by land from Baghdad to Busrah to join its other members. As he was accompanied by an escort of troops he was able to visit the princ.i.p.al ruins on the way without risk.
He found the tribes well-disposed towards Europeans, though very hostile to the Turks. Taking advantage of this favorable feeling, and relying upon the protection of the Arab Sheikhs, Mr. Loftus returned a second time alone, and was able to excavate in some of the larger mounds. He obtained during this expedition the highly interesting collection of antiquities from Wurka, now in the British Museum.
All these ruins are best reached from Hillah. The Sheikhs of the Arab tribes living near them are usually in friendly communication with the princ.i.p.al people of that town. Owing, however, to the present disturbed state of the country, I was compelled to ask for safe conduct from Agab, the Sheikh of the Afaij.
The Afaij dwell in the midst of extensive marshes formed by the Euphrates, about fifty miles below Hillah. On the eastern border of these swamps rise the great ruins of Niffer, which I was first desirous of examining. After some discussion, it was finally settled that we were to go by land, keeping as much as possible in the centre of Mesopotamia, and thus avoiding the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, as the Arabs were now congregated along the banks of the river. Zaid, with an Agayl of his acquaintance, agreed to accompany me. My own Jebours were, of course, of the party. Having hired mules and laid in a proper stock of provisions, tools, and packing cases to hold any antiquities that might be discovered, we began our journey on Wednesday, the 15th of January.
The weather was bright and intensely cold. The sky was cloudless, but a biting north wind swept across the plain. It was the middle of the Babylonian winter, and a hard frost daily whitened the ground. We left Hillah by the Baghdad gate. The Bairakdar was with me, with the rest of my Mosul servants. My huntsman, old Seyyid Jasim, wrapt up in his thick Arab cloak, bore his favorite hawk on his wrist. He was followed, as usual, by the greyhounds. The Jebours went partly on foot, riding by turns on the baggage horses. Mr. Hormuzd Ra.s.sam was wanting to complete our party. He had been kept in Baghdad by severe illness almost since our arrival, and for the first time during my wanderings in Mesopotamia he was not with me.
We followed a track leading towards the centre of the Mesopotamian Desert.
Our course was nearly due east. About six miles from the town we found ourselves amidst moving sand-hills, extending far and wide on all sides.
The fine sand s.h.i.+fts with every breeze, and the wrinkled heaps are like the rippled surface of a lake. When the furious southerly wind sweeps over them, it raises a dense suffocating dust, blinding the wayfaring Arab, and leaving him to perish in the trackless labyrinth.
After four hours' ride we left the sand-heaps, and again came in sight of the black belt of palm trees. After stopping to drink water we proceeded to a small hamlet called Allak, and took up our quarters for the night in the museef of its Sheikh, who, notwithstanding his poverty, received us very hospitably. He related to me how from the numerous artificial mounds in the surrounding plains were frequently taken, after rain had washed away the soil, earthen jars and coffins containing ornaments of gold and silver.