358 RAWLINSON ON MOHAM'RAII. [May 11, 1857. 



of tlie attack. The Persians appeared to have retired as fast as they 

 were able from Mohani'rah immediately we landed, and to have 

 never halted till they reached Ahwaz, where they were overtaken 

 by a flotilla of small steamers and again dispersed. 



Now the object of General Outram in taking Mohani'rah was, as 

 he had before stated, to obtain a strategic base, in order to be 

 enabled to advance with safety into the country. His reasons for 

 thus desiring to advance into the interior were three-fold. In the 

 first place a general had to provide, as far as he was able, for the 

 health of his troops. A consideration of not less importance was to 

 make arrangements for feeding them, and in the third place it was 

 desirable to locate the troops in a strong military position. These 

 three objects then could only be obtained by advancing up the river 

 from Moham'rah. Had General Outram remained at Bushir he 

 could not have fed his troops at all ; the cavalry at any rate must 

 have starved ; and again, if he had remained at Moham'rah after 

 taking it, the troops would have suffered dreadfully from the 

 climate, for notwithstanding that the place was supposed by some 

 to be the site of Paradise, it was in reality about the most pesti- 

 lential spot in the whole Eastern world. When the Frontier Com- 

 missioners, General Williams and General Tchirikoff, were en- 

 camped at Moham'rah in the spring of 1851, there was not, he 

 believed, a single individual of their party who was not put hors de 

 combat at one time or another from fever. Three years ago he 

 remembered that the Persians had sent 500 men to garrison Mo- 

 ham'rah during the summer, and when relieved in the autumn only 

 100 men had marched out of Ihe place. That, however, it must 

 be admitted, was considered a bad season, but under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances the yearly mortality was about 50 per cent. The cause 

 of this unhealthiness was the marsh malaria produced by the decom- 

 position of vegetable matters under a burning sun, added to the 

 great humidity of the atmosphere in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the sea. But on proceeding up the river, although the heat con- 

 tinued to be great, the climate was comparatively healthy. The 

 heat, he must repeat, was extreme in this country of Susiana, and 

 always had been so. Strabo mentioned on the authority of one 

 of Alexander's generals, who had visited Susa, that the snakes and 

 lizards could not pass across the streets from one side to the other 

 without being burnt up. That story, whether intended to be taken 

 literally or not, would at any rate give an idea of what the Greeks 

 thought of the heat of Susa. He could not say that he had ex- 

 perienced quite the same degree of heat, but still it was undoubtedly 

 "very trying ; he had remained in Susiana up to the end of May, or 



