Part 24 (2/2)

At the same time he would entertain me with accounts of the districts to the south of the Afaij, their productions, and thethose vast reater part of the country below ancient Babylon has now been for centuries one great swamp It is, indeed, what the prophet foretold it should be, ”a desert of the sea”[231] The elected, have broken away, and the waters have spread over the face of the land The best known of these marshes are the Lemlud, forris at Korna But they now only for, and threaten to cover the whole of southern Mesopota thest the norant that can be found in this part of Asia The relations between theenerally consisted of little more than a trial of treachery and deceit; and, whilst the Turk looks upon these Arabs as mere wild beasts, they in return have lost all confidence in the faith and honor of the Ottolish, who have always treated them honorably and kindly, and whom consequently they have allowed to pass to and fro without harm

This respect for the British name is e the tiris

These Arabs are of the Sheeah sect of Mussulreat tribes of Rubbiyah and Ahl Maidan Each tribe has innumerable subdivisions, with distinct names and separate and independent Sheikhs

They live in mat huts and in small black tents Their chief wealth consists in vast herds of buffaloes, and they are, on the whole, notwithstanding the wretched appearance of their dwellings and the scanty clothing of both men and women, richer thanhitherto been able, in their almost inaccessible retreats, to defy the Turkish authorities

Their buffaloes supply thee quantities of butter and milk; the former is exported, and is a considerable article of trade These hideous animals appear to thrive in the marshy lands, and soenerally inoffensive and easily oats, but the anienerally too coarse to form an article of commerce They raise very little corn and barley; rice, of an inferior quality, forles near the rivers are the retreats of many kinds of wild ani the excavations at Niffer we found fresh traces of their footsteps alst the ruins The Maidan Arabs boast of capturing the manner, and trustworthy persons have assuredbound his right ar piece of the sath, hardened in the fire and sharpened at both ends, will advance boldly into the anis upon him, he forces the wood into the animal's extended jahich will then be held open whilst he can dispatch the astonished beast at his leisure with the pistol that he holds in his left hand

In the jungles are also found leopards, lynxes, wild cats, wolves, hyenas, jackals, deer, porcupines, boars in vast numbers, and other animals Wild fowl, cranes, and bustards abound, and that beautiful gae, swarms in the low brushwood The Arabs shoot them with ball The marshes are full of fish, which attain a considerable size They are chiefly, I believe, a kind of barbel Their flesh is coarse and full of bones, but they afford the Arabs a constant supply of food They are generally taken by the spear

Although the inhabitants of the nise so in many of the virtues of the Arabs of the Desert They have, however, several custoidly adhered to To say of a Maidan ”that he has sold bread,” is to offer hireatest of insults To part with a loaf for race not only upon the perpetrator, but upon his whole faly inconvenient during iving daily to e party their supplies of bread; and it was impossible to obtain it in any other manner Even its sale in the public th, compelled to send to a considerable distance for flour, and then to e it The saard to other articles of food They are sold in the bazar, as in all Eastern towns

In the souk or bazar, of the Afaij tribe, were exposed for sale a few common Manchester prints--those world-wide evidences of the extent of British trade--English stuffs (printed and dyed at Baghdad called tangebs), keffiehs, Damascus silks, striped abas, dates, rice, coffee, spices, powder and arms, the usual stores of an Eastern old and silver ornaments for the wohdad excites the admiration of the Arabs by the display of a stock of coarse knives, and common European hardware

The dampness of the soil upon which my tent was pitched, and the unwholesoht on a severe attack of pleurisy and fever I was soon unable to th to a state of extre fluid given to ain have left the Afaij swaave me immediate relief, and when Hormuzd joined me on the 28th of January, I resolved to hdad, where I could obtain medical aid To add to ourtorrents for four days, and of course soon an to rise perceptibly, and the Afaij were preparing to abandon their ht tiradas, a safer retreat

Some days elapsed, however, before I could rise fro worse Abde Pasha had been suddenly deprived of his government by the Porte on account of the failure of his expedition against the Kazail Arabs, and his fall had increased the general anarchy

It was only by joining a large party of horsemen on their way to the seat of war in the south that Hormuzd had been able to reach Niffer I found that it was quite impossible to penetrate further into Mesopotast the Afaij we ran the risk of being cut off froether I determined, therefore, to strike once more into the Desert, where ere less likely to meet with hostile Arabs than in the beaten tracks, and to hbourhood of Hillah

Fortunately I hadhorse with me, and his easy paces enabled h in a state of coab, and pitched ht beneath theere urging our horses over the desert plains of the centre of Mesopotamia Two aruides than to protect us from enereat ruin of Zibbliyah A large body of horsemen then suddenly appeared in the distance We ascended the mound, and prepared to defend ourselves from this elevated position But either the Arabs did not perceive us, or were bent upon some warlike expedition which did not admit of delay, for they passed onwards, and left us to continue our journey

Zibbliyah closely resehdad

It rises from a heap of rubbish in the centre of the Desert, and consists of a solid , sundried bricks, between the courses of which, at certain intervals, are layers of reeds as in s

We saw no huhtfall, e reached the small Arab hamlet of Bashayi It was surrounded, for defence, by a low mud wall, and some time was spent in a parley and explanation before the tie a coers I could hardly remain in my saddle until their fears were set at rest, and ere adth I tottered into a hovel, thick with smoke, and sank down exhausted, after a ride of fourteen hours and a fortnight's complete abstinence fro on foot had been unable to keep up with the caravan during our forced e until daybreak, and then in a very sorry plight, for they were stript to the skin They had approached, in search of water, the tents of so party had been robbed of every thing, and left naked in the Desert

Next th to mount my horse Hormuzd turned off to Hillah to put a stop to the excavations at Babylon With the caravan I hdad, and reached the khan of Iskanderiyah

We were noithin a few hours of the end of our journey, and leaving the servants and baggage to follow at leisure, I quitted the khan with the Bairakdar before dawn to canter into Baghdad As the sun rose froreat ruin of Ctesiphon appeared above the eastern horizon

This ruin, with a few mounds and heaps of rubbish scattered around it, is all that now remains of the capital of the Parthian e lines of earthen rans of former habitations, mark the site of the city built by Seleucus after the last fall of Babylon

The victorious Arabs, under Saad, the general of the Caliph Oed Ctesiphon after they had overthrown the Persian armies in the decisive battle of Cadesia, in the sixteenth year of the Hegira They found in the palace the throne, the crown, and the standard of the Persian kings, together with a carpet which covered the floor of the great hall, and was of such extraordinary beauty and value that it excited the wonder of the conquerors, and was considered ast the most precious spoil taken from their enemies

Ctesiphon and Seleucia received from the Arabs the nahdad was founded on the Tigris, a few miles above them, the Caliph Al Mansour wished to pull down the palace of Chosroes for materials to build his own capital His vizir, who had recently turned froion, endeavored to dissuade hi but an insincere convert to Isla with those who still professed his former faith, and whose monuments he therefore wished to preserve The attempt to destroy the vast edifice was fruitless; but when it was about to be abandoned, the vizir urged his , ”that if he now ceased to pull down the palace, history would say that Al Mansour with all his poas unable to overthrow that which another prince had built”

I did not visit Ctesiphon on this occasion; the river separated me from the ruins, and I only mention thee which I witnessed as I rode towards Baghdad As the quivering sun rose in unclouded splendor, the palace was transfor upon columns and masses of masonry Gradually this arcade was, as it were, coained in height what it lost in length, and one arch slowly appeared above the other, until the ruin assu to the sky, and pierced from the base to the sue edifice began to h perfect ie of the palace; but upon it was its exact counterpart upside down Other equally singular changes succeeded until the sun was high in the heavens, and the ruin at length disappeared in the distance The small bushes of ca this tied for a fleeting hour in its counterfeit waters the varying forh I have seen s in the East, I scarcely re or more beautiful than that near the ruins of Ctesiphon

I had just strength left hdad Once in the city, under the friendly care of Dr Hyslop, I soon recovered my health, and was ready to start on fresh adventures