grave, had been opened; and the bones and skull, still clothed with shreds of flesh, were scattered around. Although I spent two days at Kalah Sherghat I was unable to reach the platform of sun-dried bricks upon which the edifice, now in ruins, and covered with earth, must originally have been built. Remains of walls were found in abundance; but they were evidently of a more recent period than the Assyrian building, to which the inscribed bricks and the fragments of sculptured stone belonged. The ruins were consequently not thoroughly explored. I saw no remains of the alabaster or Mosul marble, so generally employed in the palaces to the north of Kalah Sherghat. Unbaked bricks alone may have been used in the edifice; and if so, the walls built with them could no longer, without very careful examination, be distinguished from the soil in which they are buried. The Tigris has been gradually encroaching upon the ruins, and is yearly undermining and wearing away the mound. Large masses of earth are continually falling into the stream, leaving exposed to view vases, sarcophagi, and remains of building. Along the banks of the river, several shafts of circular masonry, having the appearance of wells, had been thus uncovered. At the time of my first visit, we observed similar wells, and were at a loss to account for their use. I now opened two or three of them. They were filled with earth, mixed with human bones and fragments of vases and pottery *; which may have been originally deposited there, or may have fallen in from above with the rubbish. It is possible that these wells may have been constructed, at a very early period, for purposes of irrigation, or to supply water to the inhabitants of the city. The principal ruin at Kalah Sherghat, like those of Nimroud, Khorsabad, and other ancient Assyrian sites, is a large square mound, surmounted by a cone or pyramid, which rises nearly in the centre of the north side of the great platform. Imme *I found similar wells, containing human remains and pottery, amongst the ruins on the banks of the rivers of Susiana. diately below it, and forming a facing to the great mound, is a wall of well-hewn stones, carefully fitted together, and bevelled. The battlements, which still exist, are cut into gradines, and resemble those of castles and towers in the Nimroud sculptures. The wall is therefore, I think, Assyrian. It is not improbable that much of the masonry, still visible on the summit of the mound, may be the remains of an Arab fort. Long lines of smaller mounds or ramparts form a quadrangle, and are the remains of the walls which once enclosed the town. The principal ruin of Kalah Sherghat, is one of the largest with which I am acquainted in Assyria. I was unable to measure it accurately during this visit; but when on the spot with Mr. Ainsworth, we carefully paced round it; and the result, according to that gentleman's calculation, gave a circumference of 4685 yards. A part of it, however, is not artificial. Irregularities in the face of the country, and natural eminences, have been united into one great platform by earth and layers of sun-dried bricks. It is, nevertheless, a stupendous structure, yielding in extent to no other artificial mound in Assyria. In height it is unequal; to the south it slopes off nearly to the level of the plain, whilst to the north, where it is most lofty, its sides are perpendicular, in some places rising to nearly one hundred feet. I will not attempt to connect, without better materials than we now possess, the ruins of Kalah Sherghat with any ancient city whose name occurs in the sacred books, or has been preserved by ancient geographers. That it was one of the oldest cities of Assyria, is proved by the identification of the name of the king found on its monuments and bricks, with that on the centre bulls and obelisk of Nimroud; but whether it be Chalah, one of the four primitive cities mentioned in Genesis †, I will not venture to decide. Having directed Mansour to continue the excavations, I prepared to return to Mosul. Abd'rubbou offered to accompany * Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xi. p. 5 † Chap. x. 11. me; and as the desert between Kalah Sherghat and Hammum Ali was infested by roving parties of the Shammar and Aneyza Arabs, I deemed it prudent to accept his escort. He chose eight horsemen from his tribe, and we started together for the desert. We slept the first night at the tents of a Seyyid, or descendant of the Prophet, of some repute for sanctity, and for the miraculous cure of diseases, which he effected by merely touching the patient. The Arabs were fully persuaded of the existence of his healing power; but I never saw any one who even pretended to have been cured, although there was certainly no lack of subjects for the Seyyid to practise upon. The old gentleman's daughter, a dark, handsome girl, was claimed by a Sheikh of the Jebours, to whom, according to some accounts, she had been betrothed. The greater part of the night was spent in quarrelling and wrangling upon this subject. The Seyyid resolutely denied the contract, on the mere plea that one of such holy descent could not be united to a man in whose veins the blood of the Prophet did not flow. Abd'rubbou and his friends, on the other hand, as stoutly contended for the claims of the lover, not treating, I thought, so great a saint with a proper degree of respect. Although my tent was pitched at some distance from the assembly, the discordant voices, all joining at the same time in the most violent discussion, kept me awake until past midnight. Suddenly the disputants appeared to have talked themselves out, and there was a lull. Vainly flattering myself that they had sunk into sleep, I prepared to follow their example. But I had scarcely closed my eyes, when I was roused by a fresh outbreak of noises. An Arab had suddenly arrived from the banks of the Khabour the old pasture grounds of the tribe: he was overwhelmed with a thousand questions, and the news he brought of struggles between the Aneyza and the Asai, and the defeat of the former enemies of the Jebours, led to continual bursts of enthusiasm, and to one or two attempts to raise a general shouting of the war-cry. Thus they passed the night to my great discomfort. On the morrow I started early with Abd'rubbou and his horsemen. We struck directly across the desert, leaving my servants and baggage to follow leisurely along the banks of the river, by a more circuitous but safer road. When we were within four or five miles of that part of the Tigris at which the raft was waiting for me, I requested the Sheikh to return, as there appeared to be no further need of an escort. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam and myself galloped over the plain. We disturbed, as we rode along, a few herds of gazelles, and a solitary wolf or jackal; but we saw no human beings. Abd'rubbou and his Arabs, however, had scarcely left us when they observed a party of horsemen in the distance, whom they mistook for men of their own tribe returning from Mosul. It was not until they drew nigh that they discovered their mistake. The horsemen were plunderers from the Aneyza. The numbers were pretty equal. A fight ensued, in which two men on the side of the enemy, and one of the Jebours, were killed; but the Aneyza were defeated, and Abd'rubbou carried off in triumph a couple of mares. A few days after my return to Nimroud, the Jebours were compelled, by want of pasturage, to leave the neighbourhood of Kalah Sherghat. The whole desert, as well as the jungle on the banks of the river, which generally supplied, even in the driest seasons, a little grass to the flocks, having been completely dried up, Abd'rubbou, with his tribe, moved to the north. A few of his people came to Nimroud to cultivate millet; but the Sheihk himself, with the greater part of his followers, left the district of Mosul altogether, migrating to the sources of the Khabour and to the Nisibin branch of that river the ancient Mygdonius. The desert to the south of the town was now only frequented by wandering parties of plunderers, and the position of my workmen at Kalah Sherghat became daily more insecure. After they had been once or twice exposed to molestation from the Aneyza and the Obeid, I found it necessary to withdraw them had I not, they would probably have run away of themselves I renounced the further |