This Is A Place Of
Great Trade, Being The Thoroughfare From The East Indies To Aleppo.
The
town is well supplied with provisions, which are brought down the river
Tigris from Mosul, in Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, where stood the ancient
city of Nineveh.
These provisions, and various other kinds of goods, are
brought down the river Tigris on rafts of wood, borne up by a great
number of goat-skin bags, blown up with wind like bladders. When the
goods are discharged, the rafts are sold for fuel, and letting the wind
out of the goat skins, they carry them home again upon asses, to serve
for other voyages down the river.
[Footnote 3: It may be proper to remark, as not very distinctly marked
here, though expressed afterwards in the text, that Bagdat is on the
east side of the Tigris, whereas the plain, or desert of ancient
Babylon, is on the west, between that river and the Euphrates. - E.]
The buildings here are mostly of brick, dried in the sun, as little or
no stone is to be found, and their houses are all low and flat-roofed.
They have no rain for eight months together, and hardly any clouds in
the sky by day or night. Their winter is in November, December, January,
and February, which is almost as warm as our summer in England. I know
this well by experience, having resided, at different times, in this
city for at least the space of two years. On coming into the city from
Feluchia, we have to pass across the river Tigris on a great bridge of
boats, which are held together by two mighty chains of iron.
From this place we departed in flat-bottomed boats, which were larger
and more strongly built than those on the Euphrates. We were
twenty-eight days also in going down this river to Basora, though we
might have gone in eighteen days, or less, if the water had been higher.
By the side of the river there stand several towns, the names of which
resemble those of the prophets of the Old Testament. The first of these
towns is called Ozeah, and another Zecchiah. One day's journey
before we came to Basora, the two rivers unite, and there stands, at the
junction, a castle belonging to the Turks, called Curna, where all
merchants have to pay a small custom. Where the two rivers join, their
united waters are eight or nine miles broad; and here also the river
begins to ebb and flow, the overflowing of the water rendering all the
country round about very fertile in corn, rice, pulse, and dates.
The town of Basora is a mile and a half in circuit; all the houses, with
the castle and the walls, being of brick dried in the sun. The Grand
Turk has here five hundred janisaries always in garrison, besides other
soldiers; but his chief force consists in twenty-five or thirty fine
gallies, well furnished with good ordnance.
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