We Here Purchased A Boat, And Agreed With A Master And Boatmen To Carry Us To Babylon [Bagdat].

These boats serve only for one voyage, as the stream is so rapid that they cannot return.

They carry passengers to a town called Felugia [Feluchia], where the boat has to be sold for very little money, what cost fifty pieces at Bir bringing only seven or eight at that place. From Bir to Feluchia is a journey of sixteen days; but it is not good for one boat to go alone, as if it should chance to break, it would be difficult to save the goods from the Arabs, who are always robbing thereabouts, and it is necessary to keep good watch in the night, when the boat is made fast, as the Arabs are great thieves, and will swim on board to steal your goods, and then flee away. Against them a musket is a good weapon, as they are much afraid of fire-arms. Between Bir and Feluchia, there are certain places on the Euphrates where you have to pay custom, being so many _medins_ for a _some_ or camels load, together with certain quantities of raisins and soap, which are for the sons of _Aborise_, who is lord of the Arabs and of that great desert, and hath some villages on the river. Feluchia, where the goods coming from Bir are unladed, is a small village, from whence you go to Bagdat in one day.

Babylon, or Bagdat, is not a very large town, but is very populous, and much frequented by strangers, being the centre of intercourse between Persia, Turkey, and Arabia, caravans going frequently from it to these and other countries.

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