KOORDISH BOUNDARIES.

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An

tions, leaving no traces behind them. unlettered race, their wars and their deeds of arms have ever remained a sealed volume to the inquiring world. No Ossian has transmitted to us in traditional rhapsodies their battles, heroes, or adventures.

The Koords are not very particular in regard to the limits of their boundary lines; but the neighbourhood of Kifri, to which town we were proceeding, is considered by them as the south-eastern frontier of their country. It is situated upon a branch of the Odorneh*, and is about fifty miles to the southward of the encampment of Ibrahim Kanchee. Our march was very wearisome, for the plain we had traversed was covered with young locusts, which gave ourselves and our cattle the greatest annoyance. They

* Supposed to be the Physcus of Xenophon. The natives call it the river of Delli Abbas. Kinneir, in his Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire (page 297), says, "the Odorneh is formed by the junction of many streams which arise in hills between Kerkook and Soolimaniah. It pursues a south-west course, and falls. into the Tigris twenty fursungs above Baghdad.”

were extinguishing all vegetable life, and spreading the winding sheet of death over every cultivated tract*. How intimately acquainted was the prophet Joel with the rapacity of these legions when he exclaimed

"He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

"The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

"How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate+."

"The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen so shall they run.

"Like the noise of chariots on the tops of

* The locusts are mentioned by Pliny, Book xi. cap. 29. They were so called from loco usto, because the havoc they made wherever they passed left behind the ance of a place desolated by fire.

↑ Joel i. 7, 10, 18.

appear

mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array."

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They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks.

"Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be

wounded.

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They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

"The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining*."

* Joel ii. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10.

24

KIFRI.

CHAPTER II.

Kifri-Naphtha Pits-Antique Relics-Mode of Burial—Rings and Seals-Daoud Pasha-Punishment of Chaldæa-Journey Resumed-Burial Place-Turkish Prejudice-Desert of KhalisThe Mirage-Ajameeah Encampment-Dwarfish Chief-Inhospitable Reception-Banks of the Delos-Baggage Mules— Atmospherical Purity-Camp of Illyautts-Illyautt Hospitality— Illyautt Ladies-False Dawn-Persian Mules-A HaltHowesh-Dates-Fuel-Rafts of the Tigris-Assyrian Boats→ Approach to Baghdad.

WE reached Kifri at nightfall, and occupied a good caravanserai built in the Persian style of architecture. Its keeper told us the Persian troops from Kermanshaw, headed by the governor of that city, had recently sacked the town, and committed the greatest excesses. The inhabitants were distressed, and without any occupation. Even the Tartar communication between Baghdad, and Constantinople, was entirely cut off; and all this misery had been produced by

Persian depredation. The post-house was entirely deserted, its walls partially torn down, and the shops in the bazaar were unsupplied. The hills overlooking the place contained gypsum and naphtha, and wore a most arid and forbidding aspect. The only refreshing object was a tortuous stream, which wound round the walls and passed through several of the streets.

The naphtha pits or wells are situated between this town and Kerkouk, and the natives skim the surface of these pits with iron ladles, pouring the naphtha into sheepskin bags, which they transport, on the backs of asses, to Baghdad and other towns, for sale. These springs yield a profit of forty thousand piastres annually. D'Anville says, "Dans le voisinage de cette ville, il sort des rochers de l'huile de napthe, qui est reçue dans un espèce de puits; et je trouve dans une rélation manuscrite d'un voyage au Levant, par le Pere Emanuel de St. Albert, visiteur des missions de son ordre des Carmes, et depuis évèque in partibus, qu'en remuant