The doors and
window-frames, the stairs and walls of the ground-floor rooms, are
generally made of marble; though the marble which is used for these
purposes is not very fine, yet it still looks better than brick
walls. The quarry lies close to the town.
Here also the hot part of the day is passed in the sardabs. The
heat is most terrible in the month of July, when the burning simoom
not unfrequently sweeps over the town. During my short stay at
Mosul, several people died very suddenly; these deaths were ascribed
to the heat. Even the sardabs do not shelter people from continual
perspiration, as the temperature rises as high as 97 degrees 25'
Fah.
The birds also suffer much from the heat: they open their beaks
wide, and stretch their wings out far from their bodies.
The inhabitants suffer severely in their eyes; but the Aleppo boils
are not so common as in Baghdad, and strangers are not subject to
them.
I found the heat very oppressive, but in other respects was very
well, especially as regards my appetite: I believe that I could
have eaten every hour of the day. Probably this was in consequence
of the hard diet which I had been obliged to endure on my journey.
The principal thing worth seeing at Mosul is the palace, about half
a mile from the town. It consists of several buildings and gardens,
surrounded with walls which it is possible to see over, as they lie
lower than the town. It presents a very good appearance from a
distance, but loses on nearer approach. In the gardens stand
beautiful groups of trees, which are the more valuable as they are
the only ones in the whole neighbourhood.
During my stay at Mosul, a large number of Turkish troops marched
through. The Pasha rode out a short distance to receive them, and
then returned to the town at the head of the foot regiments. The
cavalry remained behind, and encamped in tents along the banks of
the Tigris. I found these troops incomparably better clothed and
equipped than those which I had seen, in 1842, at Constantinople.
Their uniform consisted of white trousers, blue cloth spencers, with
red facings, good shoes, and fez.
As soon as I was in some degree recovered from the fatigue of my
late journey, I requested my amiable host to furnish me with a
servant who should conduct me to the ruins of Nineveh; but instead
of a servant, the sister of Mrs. Rassam and a Mr. Ross accompanied
me. One morning we visited the nearest ruins on the other side of
the Tigris, at the village Nebbi Yunus opposite the town; and, on
another day, those called Tel-Nimroud, which are situated at a
greater distance, about eighteen miles down the river.
