building, now called the Church of St. James. The citadel may be very ancient; since the fortifications of this city must have been almost coeval with its foundation; but the present edifice presents no marked features of Roman architecture, being, as far as I could perceive from an exterior view, a large building, of the square form usual in Mohammedan works of this nature. The temple, which is without the precincts of the present town, on the south, has five columns still erect, supporting an architrave, a portion, no doubt, of the original portico. It appeared to be of the Corinthian order, but small, and of ordinary execution.* I could not, however, approach sufficiently close to this to examine it minutely; for, in going towards it alone, though not more than a quarter of a mile distant from our encampment, I had a cloak, and inner garment, or abba and jubbe, stripped from me by four of the villagers, who were seemingly strolling in search of plunder, and whom I could not afterwards find, to recover the articles, or even to repurchase them. The bridge is a long and level work of masonry thrown across the river, and supported on twelve arches of Roman work; the pathway, or platform, of the bridge being not more than ten feet above the level of the stream. It resembles the bridge seen near Khallet el Hhearin, on the road from Antioch to Aleppo, and, like it, was no doubt originally of Roman construction, though it has undergone repairs, in later times, from Mohammedan workmen ; and this portion of it is now in a still more ruined condition than the more ancient one. The church, which is dedicated to St. James, formerly a Bishop of Nisibeen, and a zealous opposer of the Arian heresy, is thought * M. D'Olivier, in passing through this place, saw the columns described; and, after mentioning them, he says, "Un peu plus loin, nous vîmes un bloc de marbre blanc et gris, presque entièrement enfoui, sur lequel il y avait une inscription Latine, très effacée. Nous ne pûmes lire que les trois mots suivans-Currùs. . . . victoriam stadii'.... C'était, peut-être là, le stade, où se faisaient les courses des chevaux.” -vol. iv. p. 243. 8vo. by some to have been originally constructed for a place of Christian worship, about the fourth century, and dedicated, on its first building, to the bishop whose name it bears.* Others, however, suppose it to have been originally a temple of the Romans or Greeks, which was subsequently converted into a church, when the Christians became masters of the country. I had no opportunity of entering it myself, or of seeing sufficient of it to offer an opinion on this question. course. The river, near which the city of Nisibis stood, is still a considerable stream, augmented as it is by several tributary ones in its It rises in the hills to the northward, and goes away south and south-east from hence, till its junction with the Khaboor, below Sinjār, with which, according to some, it runs ultimately into the Euphrates; though others here insisted on its going alone into the Tigris. It is rapid, deep, and clear; and its waters, which are pure and sweet, produce several kinds of fine fish, large crabs, and water-snakes, or serpents, like those found in the Arabian Sea, and on the coast of the Concan in India, particularly when approaching the harbour of Bombay.§ On returning to the camp, after my excursion, I found a large party of the inhabitants of the town assembled round the tent of Hadjee Abd-el-Rakhmān, and the eternal demand for presents was * Niebuhr's Travels, vol. ii. p. 308. 4to. + Travels of M. D'Olivier, vol. iv. p. 247. 8vo. See the Note from Pliny's Natural History, at p. 244. § In the Voyage of Admiral Van Neck, and Vice-Admiral Van Warwyck, to the East Indies, 1598, 1599, we find the Dutch killing and eating a large sea-serpent, near the island of Banda, "Le 8 de Mai, 1599, un serpent d'onze piés de long, ayant passé par un des écubiers du vaisseau Zelande, y fut tué et mangé.”—Voyages de la Comp. des Indes, t. i. p. 567. Dampier met with sea-snakes about four feet long, four fingers broad, flat tail, and spotted with yellow, on the coast of New Holland. There were also smaller ones, spotted with black and yellow; and others, very long and slender; and some as thick as a man's leg, with a red head. "This," says Pennant," reminds me of the species described by Arrian, in his Periplus Maris Erythræi,' to which he gives black skins, and blood-red eyes."-Outlines of the Globe, vol. iv. p. 100. vociferated from every mouth, but resisted with equal obstinacy. The people of the tribe living here seemed to be more mixed than we had before been accustomed to see them. The men only spoke Arabic, and the women and children Koordi. All were well dressed and clean, and about as many families resided in tents as in houses. The roving portion of the community possessed some of the most beautiful horses that could be seen; and these were chiefly employed in predatory excursions, while the rest of the men remained at home to till the ground, to feed the flocks, and to be employed in the more inglorious task of guarding the harems, or the females and children of their warring brothers. At night all our difficulties were surmounted, and our departure was fixed for the morrow. A strong watch was set around our tents, formed chiefly of volunteers from among those of the caravan who had the most to lose; but, notwithstanding all our vigilance, many trifling articles were stolen, and muskets and pistols were repeatedly discharged during the night at thieves stealing silently into the camp. JULY 1st. We began to prepare the burdens of our camels soon after midnight; and by the first opening of the dawn, we were all on our march. Our course was directed to the east-south-east over the plain. On our left, or to the north of us, we had the range of hills which are continued from Dara eastward, and on which are several villages whose names we could not learn. On the right, or to the south of us, the lofty mountain of Sinjar rose from the desert plain, and seemed to be now distant from us about forty or fifty miles. The level tract between was like a spacious sea, with rocks and islets scattered over its surface. These small hills seem to be, in many instances, artificial, and are always chosen as the sites of villages, for the purpose of greater security, and a more ready view of approaching danger. After a march of two hours, we reached a small village, on an eminence, called Tal el Schiaire, or the Hill of Corn. The few houses seen were in shape like the long barns of English farmyards, thatched with sloping roofs of straw. The people, who were all Koords, lived chiefly, however, in tents; so that these buildings were mostly uninhabited, and kept probably for storehouses of grain. In two hours from this, pursuing the same course, we passed through another place, called Theat Khalif Aga, or the Village of Khalif Aga, the name of the chief who resided here. It was seated on a smaller eminence than the former, and contained about fifty houses, but more than a hundred tents were pitched around it. Just before noon we came to a similar village, called Doogher, where we made our halt for the day. We remarked that all these villages resembled each other in their chief local features; all were seated on rising grounds, each had a stream of water running near it from the northward, and in all of them were wells for the supply of this necessary article, when the brooks might be dried up and the streams fail. In our way from Nisibeen thus far, we saw several villages on our right and left, but I could not learn their names. The last and largest, however, of these was one now nearly abreast of us, called Azrowar, and standing on a higher elevation than either of the others, In forming our halt, the place chosen for our encampment was by a small stream of water descending from the northern hills, and going to the southward to join the waters of Nisibeen. On the bank of this was killed, by one of our party, a large black serpent, of about nine feet in length, and nearly a foot in girth around the largest part of the body. It is said to prey chiefly on lizards, of which there are here many small ones of a very beautiful kind.* * Otter mentions a poisonous serpent found near Tchemen, not far from the lesser Zab, whose bite proved fatal in the course of an hour:-"A notre arrivée à cet endroit |