Every Night, When It Is Necessary To
Make Fast The Boat To The Bank, Good Watch Must Be Kept Against The
Arabs, Who Are Great Thieves And As Numerous As Ants; Yet Are They Not
Given To Murder On These Occasions, But Steal What They Can And Run
Away.
Arquebuses are excellent weapons for keeping off these Arabs, as
they are in great fear of the shot.
In passing down the river from Bir
to Feluchia, there are certain towns and villages on the Euphrates
belonging to _the son of Aborise_, king of the Arabs and of the desert,
at some of which the merchants have to pay so many _medins_ of custom on
each bale.
[Footnote 121: It is obvious that Bagdat is here meant. - E.]
SECTION II.
_Of Feluchia and Babylon._
Feluchia is a village on the Euphrates, where they who come from Bir for
Babylon disembark with their goods, and go thence by land to Babylon, a
journey of a day and a half. Babylon is no great city, but is very
populous and is greatly resorted to by strangers, being the great
thoroughfare for Persia, Turkey and Arabia, and from this place there
are frequent caravans to different countries. Babylon is abundantly
supplied with provisions, which are brought down the river Tigris on
certain rafts or _zattores_ called Vtrij, the river Tigris running past
the walls of Babylon. The blown-up hides of which these rafts are
composed, are bound fast together, on which boards are laid, and on
these boards the commodities are loaded. When unladed at Babylon, the
air is let out of the skins, which are then laid on the backs of camels
and carried back to serve for another voyage. The city of Babylon is
properly speaking in the kingdom of Persia, but is now under the
dominion of the Turks. On the other side of the river towards Arabia,
over against Babylon, there is a handsome town in which is an extensive
Bazar for the merchants, with many lodging rooms, in which the greater
part of the stranger merchants that go to Babylon expose their goods
for sale. The passage across the river between Babylon and this town is
by a long bridge of boats chained together with great chains: And when
the river is swollen by the great rains, this bridge is opened in the
middle, one half falling alongside of the walls of Babylon, and the
other half along the opposite bank of the borough. So long as the bridge
remains open, the people cross from side to side in small boats with
much danger, by reason of their smallness, and that they are usually
overladen, so that they are very liable to be overset by the swiftness
of the current, or to be carried away and wrecked on the banks. In this
manner-many people are lost and drowned, as I have often witnessed.
The tower of Nimrod, or Babel, is situated on the Arabian side of the
Tigris, in a great plain, seven or eight miles from Babylon.
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