Feb. 9, 1857.] RAWLINSON ON SOUTHERN PERSIA. 287 



in tlie time of Sennacherib, named Billat* It was an island even 

 up to the time of Alexander, being mentioned in the history of that 

 period under the names of Aphle and Apollogos. As Obollah on the 

 sea coast, it became the great entrepot, nnder the Sassanians and the 

 early Arabs, of the commerce running up the Euphrates. Now, it is 

 sixty miles from the embouchure of the river, and we can trace a 

 succession of cities below it, along the river, down to the sea. It 

 would seem indeed, that every two or three hundred years, a new 

 city was foimded on the sea shore, that it was then left dry, and the 

 people were obliged to desert it and form another port lower down. 

 In continuation of this subject, I may mention that along the whole 

 of the sea coast, from the mouth of the Euphrates to the mouth of 

 the Tab, there is a series of extensive sandbanks, which will all 

 become dry land in the course of a few years. The reason of this 

 change is again quite evident. It is not merely the simple physical 

 process that we observe in other countries, namely, that the river 

 water coming down charged with alluvium, and meeting the tide, 

 deposits the matter that it holds in solution ; but there is in the 

 Persian Gulf an additional cause of deposit. There are indeed but 

 two winds, either the north-west blowing down the valley of the 

 Euphrates, or a strong south-easter blowing up in the face of it. 

 When the wind blows down, there is of course no deposit ; but 

 when it blows up, which it often does for days together and with 

 great violence, it then brings the whole force of the sea directly 

 against the current of the Euphrates, and an enormous deposit 

 naturally takes place. That deposit is going on yearly ; and, 

 undoubtedly, in a few hundred years, the mouth of the river will 

 have extended out very much farther than at present. According 

 to my calculation, the increase is about a mile in thiiiy-five, or 

 in less than forty years. It is very doubtful if, what is now called 

 the mouth of the Euphrates, be the true mouth of the river. The 

 true mouth of the Euphrates, I myself believe to be, what is now 

 called, the Bahmishir, and that which is at present, the mouth of the 



* The ruins of Obollah, which was a place of great importance at the time of 

 the Arab conquest, and which may very well be supposed to represent not only the 

 Billat (the t is the mere feminine termination, and was probably dropped in pro- 

 nunciation) of the cuneiform inscriptions, but the Aphle and Apollogos also of the 

 Greeks, are to be seen on the right bank of the Euphrates, about two miles above 

 the mouth of what our sailors call the Haffar or Mohamrah Creek. The name, 

 however, of Obollah is now lost. The site is of much interest to Indians, as the 

 place whence the Chaldeo-Persian colony emigrated on the approach of the 

 Arabs under Khaled, and sailed for India, cai-rying with them books, like the 

 Bundehesh, written in a language that we call Pehlevi, but which is in reality the 

 vernacular dialect of Southern Chaldtea in the seventh century. The colony 

 landed at Sindah, in Guzerat, now called St. John ; and the Parsees of Western 

 India are their direct descendants. 



