Feb. 25, 1856.] LOFT US. 45 



6. Notes of a Journey from Baghdad to Basrah, with Descriptions of 

 several ChaldcPMn Remains. Accompanied by a Map. By William 

 Kennett LoiTus, Esq., f.g.s. 



Communicated by the Earl of Clarendon. 



Mb. Loftus travelled in 1849-50, in company with Mr. Churchill, 

 from Baghdad to Busrah, while attached to the staff of Colonel (now 

 General) Williams, on the Turko-Persian frontier. Their route lay 

 east of the Euphrates, through a tract, of which only the N. part was 

 at all known to Europeans. Their map is based on prismatic compass- 

 bearings, carefully made, and then squared in between specified points 

 on the banks of the river ; these had already been fixed by the oflficers 

 of the Pvuphrates Expedition, Minute details are given of the country 

 they travelled over, and the various canals which are used for irrigation, 

 are noticed. Attention is particularly drawn to the great eflfect pro- 

 duced by the Hindieh canal, a branch of the river, in diverting the 

 main stream from its natural channel, depriving the country on 

 the E. of the Euphrates of its due share of irrigation, and frequerjtly 

 causing the inhabitants of the villages in the interior of Mesopotamia 

 to abandon their lands. The Hindieh passes through the Bahr el 

 Nedjef, supplies what are believed to have been the Paludes Bahylonice, 

 and forms the Semava branch of the Euphrates. When greatly 

 flooded, the Euphrates is liable to force for itself a wide mouth into 

 the Hindieh ; to prevent which dams are constantly being con- 

 structed by the Pashas of Baghdad, and as constantly broken through 

 by the stream, or else destroyed by the rebellious Arabs of the Khezail. 

 Mr. Loftus visited the following sites of ruins, which he describes : — ■ 

 Niffar ; Hammam ; Tel Ede ; Wurka, to which he subsequently re- 

 turned, in charge of an expedition sent out by the Assyrian Excavation 

 Fund ; and Mugeyer, since excavated by Mr. Taylor. He looked 

 carefully for the Pallacopas, the canal of Alexander the Great, but, so 

 far as he was able to extend his researches, without finding any trace 

 of it.* 



Sir Henry Rawlinson bore testimony to the merits of the paper: it 

 was equally interesting both in a geographical and also an antiquarian 

 point of view, and to do it justice in either respect would require a whole 

 evening. He thought that Mr. Loftus possessed excellent qualifica- 



* Mr. Loftus, in 1854, visited the marshes of the Khezail Arabs, and succeeded 

 in making a careful map of the Western Euphrates from Semava to the Bahr el 

 Nedjef. At the S.E. extremity of this great inland sea he observed traces of an 

 ancient channel, which he believes to have been the Pallacopas. It must have 

 flowed through the Khezail marshes, and passed considerably to the W. of the 

 Mugeyer. The Arabs describe a deep river bed and several ruins upon its course. 



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