the town of Kara Tuppé. It appeared to me, to be hardly more than half the size of Kiffree, and the population still less in proportion ; that of Kiffree being estimated at three thousand, while the inhabitants of this are thought not to exceed one thousand. The appearance and language of the people are as decidedly Turkish as the name of the place itself, and all seemed to confirm the opinion already expressed as to the common origin and progress of these haltingstations on the road.

In the evening, when we prepared to mount, we began to feel the effects of the Hadjee Habeeb's displeasure, though his revenge was, as we all believed, rather at the suggestion of the offended Moollah, than from the dictates of his own more benevolent heart. My long-story-loving friend was "sent to Coventry," for his open espousal of my cause. The horse I had originally mounted was now given to one of the Hadjee's servants, and I was set on a heavily-laden mule; while the unladen animal, on which Suliman had ridden thus far, was transferred to another individual, and he was set on one carrying melons in panniers.

It was in this order that we set out soon after sun-set, kept at a distance by the heads of the party, and held in derision by the rest.

Our course was south-west, over a barren plain: two hours after our setting out, we passed a square enclosure on our left, apparently a deserted khan; and at midnight, we came to a deep ditch, filled with bitter and brackish water.

JULY 14th. Just beyond this, we began to ascend over a high and rugged range of sand-stone hills, which crossed the road at right angles, and extended widely over the plain. We were full two hours before we got clear of this pass, in which gutters or paths have been formed by the constant passage of animals, and these are now worn to a depth that renders them dangerous, except to the surer-footed beasts. We continued still on the same course of south-west until an hour after sun-rise, when, having travelled on the whole about thirty miles, we reached the station of Delhi Abāss.

We passed no stream, nor even the bed of one, in our way from Kara Tuppé thus far; for the ditch, to which we came at midnight, having bitter and brackish water in it, was crossed by a bridge of a few planks, and was not ten yards wide. In the map of Macdonald Kinneir, the Odorneh, or the Phuskus, is made to pass from the north-eastward into the Tigris, and to intercept the road, just midway between these two stations; but, in this, there must be some error, as the river he speaks of was a very considerable one. In the memoir, accompanying the map, this writer says, "The Odorneh, (supposed, by some authors, to be the Phuskus of Xenophon,) is formed by the junction of many streams, which arise in hills between Kerkook and Solymania. It pursues a south-west course, and falls into the Tigris, twenty fursungs above Bagdad. I crossed the Odorneh," he continues, "at the village of Tooz Khoorma, forty-five leagues from Bagdad, on the road to Mousul. The bed of the river was about sixty yards in breadth, and in the spring it contains a great body of water."*

* Geographical Memoir on the Persian Empire, p. 297. 4to.

On referring to the map, it is seen that the Touz Kourma, mentioned as the place of crossing, is at the very head of the stream, and a long way to the eastward of the direct road from Bagdad to Mousul; whereas, Tour Khoorma, which I suspect to be the same place, and that at which the traveller supposed he crossed this river on the road to Mousul, is laid down on the branch of another stream between Kufree and Taook, which, from its inconsiderable size, has no name given to it. I cannot omit to mention, however, that between Taook and Kufree I neither observed any such stream, nor did we pass through any place called "Touz Kourma," which is seated, by Major Macdonald Kinneir, on a river sixty yards wide, and made by him the boundary of division between the fertile, populous, and picturesque country to the north, and the barren, deserted, and naked country to the south of it. It must, therefore, be to the eastward of the track by which we came, and not in the direct road, if such be its features; or, if it be the Tour Khoorma in the straight route, then these features of it cannot be accurate.

At Delhi Abāss, we found a river running close to the south of the village, and going towards the south-west. It was not fordable in any part, even at this advanced period of the dry season, but was so broad as to be crossed by a brick-built bridge of four pointed arches. The source of this stream was said to be several days' journey to the eastward, among the mountains of Koordistan, and it here bent its way towards the Tigris in a west-south-west direction. Though this stream is broader, deeper, and of a longer course, than the Jordan of Palestine above the Lake of Tiberias, yet it did not, according to the report of persons living here, reach the banks of the Tigris at all, being entirely exhausted by canals, which drained off its waters for the cultivation of the land around it. I did not readily credit this statement, though I could find no one who positively knew of its junction with the Tigris, while all contended that it did not reach that stream; but the size of the river, and the large body of water it even now contained, justified, as I thought, some incredulity on this point.

66

says,

As this was the most considerable stream, next to the Greater and Lesser Zab, that we had met with since crossing the Tigris at Mousul, it may, perhaps, be assumed to be that of the Physcus, or Odorneh, of the ancients. In a Memoir on the Expedition of Heraclius into Persia, and the flight of Chosroes from his palace at Dastagherd, by which this expedition was terminated, the author "When Heraclius had crossed the Tigris at Mousul, he passed, in succession, the rivers of the Greater and the Lesser Zab, and a third river named Torneh."* This is conceived, from the resemblance of names, to have been the same as the Tornadotum of Pliny, who, when speaking of an Antiochia, thought to be the Opis of Xenophon and Strabo, says, it is seated between two rivers, " inter duo Alumina, Tigrim et Tornadotum." A river, called by Tavernier, Odorne," by D'Anville, "Odorneh," by Xenophon," Physcus,”† and by Ptolemy, "Gorgus," and thought to be but one stream under these many names, is assumed to be this Tornadotum of Pliny, and the Torneh crossed by Heraclius after his passage of the Tigris and the Greater and Lesser Zab. For myself, I inquired of the few passengers and stationary people here, what was the name by which this stream was known among the people of the country; but I could obtain no other answer from either Turks or Arabs, than that by some it was called “the river," by others," the brook," and by others, “ the water” of Delhi Abass. My informers were, however, in general so ignorant and indifferent to every thing about them, that I was not likely to obtain any more accurate information regarding the name, than than I was respecting the course and ultimate disappearance, of the stream. Its position, as the third in order after passing the Tigris, in a march directed this way, is probably a

* Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

+ According to the map constructed from the details of the Anabasis, the Physcus fell into the Tigris considerably below the site of Bagdad. It was sixty miles to the northward of the place where the Greeks crossed the Tigris, and was a hundred feet broad. Opis stood on its northern bank.-Anabasis, book ii