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sorn is grown, less profit is produced to the revenue; exaction then comes in the place of due payment: and the peasantry, driven to desperation, abandoning their villages, seek employment in the city. There the defalcation of grain makes itself speedily known; and the new ingress of claimants renders the want more apparent every hour. To obviate this difficulty, the summary measure is resorted to of annually banishing the most miserable of the inhabitants; to starve in the desert, to wander to the mountains; or, abiding nearer home, to league themselves with robbers, and support themselves and families by plundering and murder.

“ We see poverty and distress in the Christian countries of Europe; but we must come to the East to witness the one endured without pity, and the other only noticed to have fresh afflictions heaped upon it. I do not mean to say, that there are not amiable exceptions to this remark; but where charity is not a leading principle of duty, the selfishness of human nature readily turns from the painful or expensive task of sympathizing with the miserable. General hospitality, and universal benevolence, arise from totally different motives; and are, often, as completely distinct in their actions. The one is bestowed on grounds of probable reciprocityof benefit; the other, when not commanded by religion, can only arise from the compassion of a disinterested heart. Hence, though we find individual instances of this species of benevolence in all countries, it is only where Christianity prevails, that care of the poor is practised as a national concern. In the midst of the scenes just described, acting within and without the walls of Bagdad, luxury grows as rankly round the rich, as in the most prosperous cities; and the expenses lavished on “ singing-men, and singing

; women," brought from afar, are equally enormous. The ladies of Bagdad, in particular, appear to be singularly inclined to festivity; and their assemblies, like those of our own country-women, are generally held during the later hours of the twenty-four. They usually meet, by invitation, at the harem of some one of the wives of the chief officers of state ; where due care has been taken to provide the best female dancers, singers, and musicians, that the city affords; and thither, about sunset, the several bidden guests assemble, in the most lovely groups of youth and beauty, attended by their serving-women bearing their narquillies; a sort of hooker or kalioun, of which even the most delicate of the fair sex in these countries are remarkably fond. Before I proceed with the details of the entertainment, it may not be amiss to stop, and describe the dresses of the ladies, in the customary style of drawing-room paraphernalia.

“ Women of the first consequence here go about on ordinary occasions on foot, and with scarcely any attendants; it being the etiquette to avoid, when in public, every striking distinction of appearance. In compliance with this fashion, all the fair sex of the city, high and low, walk abroad in the blue-checked chadre; its folding drapery having no other mark of an august wearer, than a few gold threads woven into its border. Instead of the white towel-like veil of the Persians, these ladies conceal their faces behind a much more hideous mask; a black stuff envelop of horse-hair. The liberty they possess, of paying visits without the surveillance of a male guard, and under these impenetrable garbs, are privileges perhaps too friendly to a license their husbands do not intend. So much the reverse is the case with Persian women

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of rank, they hardly move but on horseback, and escorted always by trains of eunuchs, and other trusty vigilants.

" When the fair pedestrians of Bagdad issue from behind their clouds, on entering their own apartments, or those of the ladies they go to visit, dresses are displayed in every group, of the most gorgeous magnificence; for it may easily be conceived, that rivalry with regard to personal charms, and graceful habiliments, flourishes amongst the belles of an Eastern harem, as gaily as with those of an European ballroom. The wives of the higher classes in Bagdad are usually selected from the most beautiful girls that can be ubtained from Georgia and Circassia; and, to their natural charms, in like manner with their captive sisters all over the East, they add the fancied embellishments of painted complexions, hands and feet dyed with henna, and their hair and eyebrows stained with the rang, or prepared indigo-leaf. Chains of gold, and collars of pearls, with various ornaments of precious stones, decorate the upper part of their persons, while solid bracelets of gold, in shapes resembling serpents, clasp their wrists and ancles. Silver and golden tissued muslins, not only form their turbans, but frequently their under-garments. In summer, the ample pelisse is made of the most costly shawl, and, in cold weather, lined and bordered with the choicest furs. The dress is altogether very becoming ; by its easy folds, and glittering transparency, showing a fine shape to advantage, without the immodest exposure of the open vest of the Persian ladies. The humbler females generally move abroad with faces totally unveiled, having a handkerchief rolled round their heads, from beneath which their hair hangs down over their shoulders, while another piece of linen passes under their chin, in the fashion of the Georgians. Their garment is a gown of a shift form, reaching to their ancles, open before, and of a grey colour. Their feet are completely naked. Many of the very inferior classes stain their bosoms with the figures of circles, half-moons, stars, &c. in a bluish stamp. In this barbaric embellishment, the

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damsel of Irak Arabi has one point of vanity resembling that of the ladies of Irak Ajem. The former frequently adds this frightful cadaverous hue to her lips; and, to complete the savage appearance, thrusts a ring through her right nostril, pendent with a flat button-like ornament set round with blue or red

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stones.”

THE RUINS OF BABYLON,

“ November 9th, 1818.— I was now fully embarked on my long-anticipated expedition; and having passed the gate of the western suburb, I looked around me on the vast extended Chaldean plain east of the Euphrates, with a delight that seemed for some minutes to send me on the wing oveç its whole interesting tract; ranging both sides of that mighty river, and to wherever the majesty of Babylon had flowed down its venerable stream.

“ According to Herodotus, the walls were sixty miles in circumference, built of large bricks cemented together with bitumen, and raised round the city in the form of an exact square; hence they measured fifteen miles along each face. They were eighty-seven feet thick, and three hundred and fifty high, protected on the outside by a vast ditch lined with the same materials, and proportioned in depth and width to the elevation of the walls. They were

Babylon, by the embankments of two once poble canals, very near each other, and running almost due east and west. In the first, which we crossed by a brick bridge, we saw water. These canals seem at present to be regarded as the boundary, whence the decided vestiges of the great city commence; and we soon discovered their widely spreading tracks. In crossing the bridge, which leads to those immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and human habitations of every description; now buried in shapeless heaps, and a silence profound as the grave; I could not but feel an undescribable awe, in thus passing, as it were, into the gates of "fallen Babylon.'

“ Between this bridge and Hillah (something more than eight miles distant,) three piles of great magnitude particularly attract attention ; but there are many minor objects to arrest investigation in the way. A mound of considerable elevation rose on our left as we rode along, not five hundred yards from the second embankment; its sloping sides were covered with broken bricks, and other fragments of past buildings, while the ground around its base presented a most nitrous surface. At a few hundred yards onward again, another mound projected of still greater height, and from it branched subordinate elevations in several directions. I here had a fine view of the great oblong pile, called by the Arabs Mujelibé, or rather Mukallibe, the overturned :' an attributive term, which, however, they do not confine to this sublime wreck alone ; other remains, in this immense field of ruin, bearing the same striking designation of the manner of its fall. Mujelibé bore from the elevation on which we stood, south 10° west. Having proceeded about a couple of miles from the two canal ridges near Mahowil, we advanced to another and higher embankment, of a totally different appearance from that of a water course. It ran almost due east and west, until lost to the eye in the horizon on both sides. I rode a considerable way along its base, to examine whether there might not be some trace of a ditch, and, though I did not discover any, nor, indeed, aught that was at all answerable to our ideas of what would have been even a fragment of the vast bulwark-walls of Babylon, yet I saw no cause to doubt its being a remnant of some minor interior boundary.

" The whole of our road was on a tolerably equal track; excepting where unavoidably broken by small mounds, detached pieces of canal embankments, and other indications of a place in ruins ; mingled with marshy hollows in the ground, and large nitrous spots, from the deposits of accumulated rubbish. Indeed it was almost impossible to note, while their number confused our antiquarian researches, the endless ramifications of minor aqueducts, whose remains intersected the way. At about four miles in advance from the long single embankment, or interior boundary ridge I mentioned before, we crossed a very spacious canal; beyond which, to the eastward, the plain appeared a vast uninterrupted flat.

“An hour and a quarter more brought us to the north-east shore of the Euphrates, hitherto totally excluded from our view by the intervening long and varied lines of ruin, which now proclaimed to us on every side, that we were, indeed, in the midst of what had been Babylon. From the point on which we stood, to the base of Mujelibé, large masses of ancient foundations spread on our right, more resembling natural hills in appearance, than mounds covering the remains of former great and splendid edifices. To the eastward also, chains of these undulating heaps were visible, but many not higher than the generality of the canal embankments we had passed. The whole view was particularly solemn. The majestic stream of the Euphrates wandering in solitude, like a pilgrim monarch through the silent ruins of his devastated kingdom, still appeared a noble river, even under all the disadvantages of its desert-tracked course. Its banks were hoary with reeds, and the grey osier willows were yet there, on which the captives of Israel hung up their harps, and, while Jerusalem was not, refused to be comforted. But how is the rest of the scene changed since then! At that time, these broken hills were palaces; those long undulating mounds, streets; this vast solitude, filled with the busy subjects of the proud daughter of the East! Now, wasted with misery,' her habitations are not to be found ; and, for herself, “the worm is spread over her!! Our road bent, from the immediate bank of the river, to the south-east; and, after crossing the bed of a very wide canal, almost close to the bank we were leaving, we entered on an open tract, on which I saw the extensive encampment of the Kiahya Bey. The town of Hillah lay a couple of miles beyond it; a long stretch of lowbulwarked wall, but enlivened by cupolas and glittering minarets, and the tops of numerous plantations of date-trees, with other green boughs from the gardens, through whose pleasant avenues we soon approached the gates of the place. On passing them, I found a house prepared for me in the suburb of the city, on the east side of the river, and not far from the bridge. I could not have had a more desirable situation, for comparative coolness and interest of prospect. Our ride this day had occupied nearly nine hours, and over a space of ground about the same as the day before, namely, twenty-eight miles.

** November 12th.-By the appointed hour this morning, the kiahya's officer appeared before my gate, at the head of a hundred well-armed men, some of whom were Arabs, all fairly mounted, and ready to attend me to that part of the desolated land of Shinar which lies west of the Euphrates. My immediate object was the Birs Nimrood ; the tower mentioned by Neibuhr with so much regret at his having been prevented, by apprehension of the wild tribes in the desert, from closely examining its prodigious remains. But the observations he was enabled to make, however short of his wishes, were sufficient to awaken in him an idea, now ably supported by the more comprehensive investigations of the present British resident at Bagdad, that in this pile we see the very Tower of Babel, the stupendous artificial mountain erected by Nimrod in the plain of Shinar, and on which, in after-ages, Nebuchadnezzar raised the temple of Belus. It lies about six miles south-west of Hillah. On leaving the suburb on the eastern shore of the river, we crossed a bridge of thirty-six pontoons, all considerably smaller than those over the Tigris at Bagdad, and like them in a neglected state. The width of the Euphrates at this passage, is four hundred and thirty feet. On quitting the crazy timbers of the bridge, which gave terrible note of insecurity, under the tramping feet of my attendant troopers, we entered the most considerable part of the town of Hillah ; and, after riding through a narrow and crowded bazar, nearly suffocated with the double evils of heat and stench, and thence proceeding along three or four close streets, at intervals opened to the fresh air by intervening heaps of ruins, we reached the western

entered by twenty-five gates on each side, made of solid brass; and additionally strengthened by two hundred and fifty towers. Within these walls rose the multitudinous streets, palaces, and other great works of Babylon, including the temple of Belus, the hanging gardens, and all the magnificence which constituted this city the wonder of the world. A branch of the Euphrates flowed through the city, from the north to the south; and was crossed by a strong bridge, constructed at the foundation, of large stones fastened together with lead and iron. While it was building, the course of the river was turned into a large basin, to the west of the town, which had been cut to the extent of forty square miles, and seventy-five feet deep, for a yet nobler purpose; to receive the same ample stream, while the great artificial banks were erecting of brick on each side of the bed of the river, to secure the country from its too abundant overflow. Canals were cut for this purpose also; one of these led to the immense basin already described, which, when required, disembogued the river into its capacious bosom; and always continued to receive its superflux; returning the water, when necessary, by various sluices to fructify the ground. During the three great empires of the East, no tract of the whole appears to have been so reputed for fertility and riches as the district of Babylonia; and all arising from the due management of this mighty stream. Herodotus mentions, that even when reduced to the rank of a province, it yielded a revenue to the kings of Persia that comprised half their income. And the terms in which the Scriptures describe its natural, as well as acquired, supremacy when it was the imperial city, evidence the same facts. They call it, Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency: The Lady of Kingdoms, given to pleasure; that dwellest carelessly, and sayest in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me! But now, in the same expressive language, we may say, 'She sits as a widow on the ground. There is no more a throne for thee, O daughter of the Chaldeans! And for the abundance of the country, it has vanished as clean away, as if the besom of desolation' had indeed swept it from north to south; the whole land, from the outskirts of Bagdad to the farthest stretch of sight, lying a melancholy waste.

"The present population of this part of the country consists of a race of Arabs, called the tribe of Zobiede; but, from their situation, being much in contact with the Turks, they have lost their national character of independence, and acquired in its stead rather degrading than elevating habits. In times of tranquillity from openly declared warfare, these people and their chief are responsible to the government of the Pasha for the general security of the road from casual depredators; but under the present circumstances, when their brethren of the desert issue forth in such formidable hordes, these poor creatures dare hardly show their heads.

"If I complained of want of cleanliness in the persons of the Persian lower orders, I have not terms to express the exceeding loathsomeness of the Arab Fellah. The skins of these people are actually ingrained with dirt; and the male children, additionally embrowned by the roasting sun, run about till thirteen or fourteen years of age, without the shadow of a garment. The mothers answer pretty well to the description I have already given of the lowest class in Bagdad. The only difference appears to be, that here their shift-like gowns are al

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