Part 25 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXV
PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE--SAHIMAN--PLUNDER OF HIS CAMELS--LEAVE BAGHDAD--JOURNEY THROUGH MESOPOTAMIA--EARLY ARAB REMAINS--THE MEDIAN WALL--TEKRIT--HORSES STOLEN--INSTANCES OF BEDOUIN HONESTY--EXCAVATIONS AT KALAH SHERGHAT--REACH MOSUL--DISCOVERIES DURING ABSENCE--NEW CHAMBERS AT KOUYUNJIK--DESCRIPTION OF BAS-RELIEFS--EXTENT OF THE RUINS EXPLORED--BASES OF PILLARS--SMALL OBJECTS--ROMAN COINS STRUCK AT NINEVEH--hoarD OF DENARII--GREEK RELICS--ABSENCE OF assYRIAN TOMBS--FRAGMENT WITH EGYPTIAN CHARACTERS--assYRIAN RELICS--REMAINS BENEATH THE TOMB OF JONAH--DISCOVERIES AT SHEREEF-KHAN--AT NIMROUD--assYRIAN WEIGHTS--ENGRAVED CYLINDERS
There was no hope of ihdad The Pasha had left the daave way, and afforded fresh retreats to the Arabs Under these circuive up for the time the excavations in the ruins of Babylonia When tranquillity had been to soht be undertaken either by myself, or by some other traveller, with better prospects of success
The Sha and summer pastures I had been in continual communication with the sons of Rishwan Suttum, whose wife's imperious te the winter with another branch of the tribe in the neighbourhood of Tekrit It was suspected that he had been privy to more than one successful attack on the Turkish post, and on certain treasure convoys belonging to the governhdad and Mosul were completely closed by bands of Bedouins, who plundered every caravan that came within their reach Sahiman and Mijwell had accompanied their father to the plains of southern Babylonia The latter had been severely wounded in so northwards with the rest of his tribe, I thought this a good opportunity of following under his protection the direct track to Mosul through the Desert and along the western bank of the Tigris He at once consented to escortthat I should obtain permission froh the suburbs of Baghdad, instead of following the longer and h the marshes, like those of the rest of the tribe The request was granted, and a guarantee was given to overnor and the commander in chief of the troops, that my Bedouin friend, with his family and property, should cross the city in safety They had no sooner, however, entered the gates, than they were fallen upon by the inhabitants of the quarter, aided by a body of irregular troops and Agayls Abandoning nearly eight hundred camels, Sahiman and his brother Arabs fled into the Desert
Warainst this act of treachery The Turkish authorities declared that it was an accident beyond their control, and at length adopted means to recover the stolen camels It was, however, with some difficulty, that I was able to find Sahihdad Eventually the greater part of his property was restored to hied in continual enood faith of the Turks and of the inhabitants of towns has been completely destroyed
This untimely occurrence, as well as repeated attacks of fever, delayed my departure for some days, and it was not until the 27th of February that, bidding adieu to ris by the crazy bridge of boats, and took the crowded road to Kathiht beneath the hospitable roof of the Nawab of Oude At daybreak on the following uidance of Sahiman, and accompanied by Hormuzd, the Jebours, and my servants, I left the sacred suburb, and followed a beaten track leading to the Desert In order to avoid the windings of the river, we struck across the barren plain The low houses of Kathiht, but for soilded do above the dark belt of pal sun At last they too vanished, and I had looked for the last tihdad We were now in as co in the reat city Not a living creature broke the solitude Here and therethe sites of for since left them, either to move further into the Desert, or to seek security froroves on the banks of the river
We travelled with speed over the plain After a ride of nine hours we found ourselves in the e called Summaichah, formerly a town of some importance, and still watered by the Dujail, a wide and deep canal of the tiris The inhabitants seeing horse that ere travellers and friends they escorted us to the house of their Sheikh, Hashem, who immediately slew a sheep, and made other hospitable preparations for our entertain over a stationary tribe who till the soil, is of Shammar descent, and is married to a Bedouin lady As his wife, however, will not condescend to live within four walls, he is obliged to co one half of the year under her tent, and the other in his hovel ast his own people As we expected to fall in with her tribe during our journey northwards, he entrusted me with a bundle of embroidered cloaks and colored kerchiefs as presents to her and her kin
His st the Arabs the hospitality of Hashee of the Desert, is convenient for hearing news fro before or after plundering expeditions, although a Turkish arrison of a dozen half-starved Albanians, resides within the walls of its ruined serai
The plain on all sides is intersected by the remains of innuris and the Dujail Their lofty banks narrow the view, and it was only as we passed over theroves of the large village of Belled We left the village to the right, and passed through the ruins of an Arab town of the time of the Caliphs Beyond it we crossed the Dujail, by a falling bridge of four large arches, with a small arch between each The beauty of the masonry, the ornamental inscriptions, and rich tracery of this ruin, showed that it was of the best period of Arab architecture
To the north of the Dujail ound through a perfect maze of ancient canals now dry It required the practised eye of the Bedouin to follow the sand-covered track About eight h rampart of earth then stretched as far as the eye could see, to the right and to the left At certain distances weresquare inclosures, like ruined outworks A few hundred yards in advance was a second rampart, much lower and narrower than the first We had reached what some believe to be the famous Median wall, one of the many wonders of Babylonia, built by the Babylonians frouard their wealthy city and thickly peopled provinces against invasion from the north Captain Jones, however, who has exareater distance than any other traveller, or than I could do during a hasty journey, is of opinion that they are not those of a wall of defence, but inally raised to protect the lower country froation I confess that my own impression, even after this explanation, was in favor of the rampart At any rate, if this be not the Median wall, no traces of which have been as yet found in any other part of Mesopotaular line of fortification It is called by the Arabs, at the place we crossed it, Farriyah; elsewhere, the Sidr al Nimroud, or the rampart of Ni gravelly downs, furrowed by deep ravines, and occasionally rising into low hills With the rich alluvial soil of Babylonia, we had left the boundaries of the ancient province The banks of the Tigris are here, in general, too high, and the face of the country too unequal, to ad carried far inland by watercourses derived from the river
The spiral tower, the doth appeared above the eastern horizon, and we rode towards them After nine hours and a half's journey we encaris opposite to the town As the sun went doatched the women who, on the other side of the river, caracefully bearing their pitchers on their heads returned to the gates But on our bank the solitude was only broken by a lonely hyaena cory jackals that prowled round our tents The ruins of an early Arab town, called Ashi+k, stood on a hill in the distance, and near our ca place were the deserted walls of a more recent settlement
On the third day of our journey another ride of nine hours and a half, along the banks of the Tigris, brought us to Tekrit The Arabs were keeping the se, and its supplies having been cut off, we had so provisions for ourselves and our horses We were not sorry to leave Tekrit, whose inhabitants did not belie a notoriously bad character Nextwe struck inland, in order to avoid the precipitous hills of Makhoul, at whose very feet sweeps the Tigris They fore which coh the centre of Mesopotamia, crosses the river near Khan Karnaineh, then takes the na the mountains of Luristan continues parallel with them to the Persian province of Fars In the Makhoul hills are several ruins Soris, and once, probably, the stronghold of a freebooter, who levied blackmail on travellers, are called by the Arabs the ”Castle of the Giants,” and are said to be the dwelling-place of jins and various other supernatural beings
Our track led through a perfect wilderness We found no water, nor saw anyride of about eleven hours, we reached sos, called Belaliss, the co of security, and we all slept without keeping the accustoht by an unusual noise close to ave the alarm, but it was too late
Two of our horses had been stolen, and in the darkness we could not pursue the thieves Sahiman broke out in reproaches of himself as the cause of our mishap, and wandered about until dawn in search of soth he tracked thely that they were of the Shammar, pointed out, from marks almost imperceptible to any eye but to that of a Bedouin, that they were four in number, had left their delouls at some distance from our tents, and had already journeyed far before they had been drawn by our fires to the encah He swore an oath that he would follow and bring back our stolen horses wherever they ht be, for it was a shame upon him and his tribe that, whilst under his protection in the Desert, we had lost anything belonging to us And he religiously kept his oath When we parted at the end of our journey, he began at once to trace the ani which he went as far as Ana on the Euphrates, where one had been sold to an Arab of the town, he brought them to Mosul I ay at the time, but he left them with Mr
Rassa a reward for perfor an act of duty iood faith are not unco Arabs, as I can bear witness, from personal experience
Mr Rassam frequently sent Suttum across the Desert with as much as five or six hundred pounds in money, and alith the most complete confidence His only reas an occasional silk dress, or one or two camel loads of corn for his fas[232] Of late years the wool of the Bedouin sheep has been in considerable dee trade in this article has already been opened with the Shaenerally advanced some months before the sheep are sheared, to enable the Arabs to buy their winter stock of provisions Mr Rassam has thus paid beforehand several thousand pounds without any written or other guarantee whatever
The tribes leave the neighbourhood of the town, and are not again heard of until their long strings of ca the pro all the way alone fro sus, the balance of a wool account between the quarrelled with his parents, ran away and cae He becaotten his early friends, when the tribe, driven by a famine from the Syrian desert, crossed the Euphrates, and encamped near the town to buy corn Ibn Gayshi+sh, their Sheikh, hearing by chance that the fugitive was still alive, and now a er to him to say, that since he had quitted his tents his father had died, and had left a certain nu to the law ast his fa of the tribe, and had increased yearly The chief was now ready to do with theht direct
Mr Rassam had, at my request, sent a party of Jebours to renew the excavations at Kalah Sherghat, which had been very is of Belaliss are separated fros the ruins, by a wild rocky valley, called Wadi Jehannem, the Valley of hell We crossed it and the hills in about three hours and a half, and came suddenly upon the workmen, who, of course, took us for Bedouin plunderers, and prepared to defend thereat mound, but had made no discoveries of any importance, and I a any number of sculptures or inscriptions ever existed on the platfored bull in the alabaster of the Nineveh palaces, part of a statue in black stone with a few cuneifore inscribed slab of copper, were found in the ruins; I collected also the frage inscribed cylinder in baked clay[233], and a copper cup, a few vases in cole to the north of the ruins, and were visited by fifteen men of the Albou Mohammed, who frankly confessed that they were thieves, out on their vocation As the tribe does not bear a very good character for honesty, and as itfurther to fulfil the object of their journey, we violated the duties of hospitality, and put soood conduct of the rest
I ordered the Jebours to leave Kalah Sherghat, and to return with us to Mosul, which we reached the following day Mr Bell, who had been sent to assyria by the Trustees of the British Museum to succeed Mr Cooper as artist to the expedition, had arrived in the too days before I rode with him without delay to Kouyunjik, to exa my absence I will now describe the sculptures uncovered whilst I was at Baghdad and after land
To the north of the great centre hall four new chambers had been discovered The first was 96 feet by 23 On its walls were represented the return of an assyrian army from ith their spoil of captives and cattle The prisoners were distinguished by a cap turned back at the top, not unlike the Phrygian bonnet reversed, short tunics, and a broad belt
The wo over their shoulders, and were clothed in fringed robes The fighting-men of the conquered tribe wore a si in front to the knee, and behind, to the calf of the leg; a wavy girdle, and a cross-belt round their breasts, ending in two large tassels A kneeling caned with considerable truth and spirit The legs bent under, the tail raised, the foot of the , whilst a second adjusts the burden froroup seen every day in the Desert and in an Eastern town The camel saddle, too, nearly resembled that still used by the Arabs
This chamber opened at one end into a small room, 23 feet by 13 On its walls were represented a captive tribe, dressed in short tunics, a skin falling from their shoulders, boots laced up in front, and cross-bands round their legs; they had short, bushy hair and beards
In the outer chareat hall, led into a parallel apartment, 62 feet by 16 feet On its walls was represented the conquest of the saian bonnet There were long lines of prisoners; so-men, armed with bows and quivers, were made to bear part of the spoil In the costuons and war-carts, these bas-reliefs bore a striking resemblance to the sculptures of the son of Essarhaddon, described in a previous chapter[234] It may, therefore, be inferred that the conquest of the same nation was celebrated in both, and that on these walls we have recorded the successful wars of Sennacherib in the country of Susiana or Elam