418 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[APRIL, 



with the customs of the people, and from 

 insult by the influence of his protector. 



Among the more remarkable parts of the 

 volume, are his descriptions of ancient cities, 

 of what is believed to be Nineveh, Nisibis, 

 Arbela, Ctesiphon, Seleucia, and Babylon; 

 and of these, the most memorable are his re- 

 searches relative to Babylon. Among the 

 existing masses of masonry, one he conceives 

 to be a relic of the celebrated wall, which 

 had eluded the research of former travellers. 

 We must bear in mind that (bis wall was sur- 

 rounded by a deep foss, or the obliteration 

 of it will seem perfectly incredible ; the ma- 

 terials of the wall filled up the ditch, and all 

 was thus left comparatively level. A pyra- 

 midal mass had been recognised by Mr. 

 Rich, the resident English Consul at Bagdad, 

 at the time of Mr. B's visit, as the temple of 

 Belus. Niebuhr beheld it at a distance only, 

 and took it for a watch-tower ; but an after- 

 perusal of Herodotus led h im to conjecture 

 it might prove to be the ruins of the temple 

 of Belus. Mr. Buckingham examined it 

 with great attention, and left it with an im- 

 pression corresponding with Niebuhr's con- 

 jecture, and Mr. Rich's conviction. It is 

 a pile of two hundred feet high, on a basis 

 of about one hundred yards square, and on the 

 top of it is a tower of fifty feet high the very 

 dimensions given by Herodotus, and, after 

 him, by Strabo. 



To trace Mr. Buckingham particularly 

 along his route would be useless, and indeed, 

 with our limits, quite impracticable. An 

 estimate may be formed of his power of ge- 

 neral observation by an extractor two. 



With the people of the east (he remarks), reli 

 gion acts as a detractive cause, and hinders the 

 natural progress of their understanding, by cor- 

 rupting it with errors in its course. In boyhood, 

 they are sensible, acute, and rational. In manhood, 

 they are weak, credulous, and prone to error. 

 They see nothing in any books they read to induce 

 them, either that the power of God to work mi- 

 racles, his inclination so to do, or the necessity 

 of their existence to convince the unbelieving, 

 has ceased ; so that they continue to believe in the 

 occurrence of events, as miraculous as those with 

 which the pages of the books used by them in the 

 studies of their infancy abound. The Mahome 

 dans, equally convinced, with their Jewish and 

 Christian neighbours of the east (for nearly all 

 the Asiatics are alike immersed in superstition) of 

 the immediate superintendence of genii and guar- 

 dian-spirits, as well as the influence of their prophets 

 in heaven, say " What! if angels could perform 

 such wonders in the days of old, can they not now, 

 in a similar way, protect the fish of the Lake of 

 the Patriarch * from the operation of fire, and 

 make them resist every process that may be 

 tried upon them, to convert them into food?" 

 In Protestant countries, the devout are content 

 to believe in the miracles of the past, and look 

 on the age of working them as having closed 



* Vhefryability of the fish of this lake the 

 Lake of Abraham, atOrfah, is steadily denied, by 

 high and low, and alleged as a proof of the care 

 the Patriarch still takes of his native city Mr. B. 

 had the evening before partaken of some stolen, 

 in company with some Cliri?t:nns. 



with the closing page of revelation. Aa to the 

 grounds on which they reject a belief In their ex- 

 istence since that period whether it be from any 

 failure of power, or want of inclination (what 

 occasion for levity ?) in the Deity, or from the 

 absence of a necessity for their occurrence since 

 the commencement of the Christian era, all men 

 are not agreed; but certain it is that modern 

 education teaches Europeans to measure the events 

 and opinions of their own day, by a very different 

 standard from that used in judging of the history 

 of earlier times. And though, on events of a cer- 

 tain degree of antiquity, the indulgence of much 

 freedom in inquiry is thought to be dangerous, yet 

 on the affairs of our own times, and on matters 

 more nearly affecting our business and bosoms 

 at the present moment, it is courted and encou- 

 raged. It is thus that, with us, religion does not, 

 as in the east, obstruct the progress of our general 

 knowledge. P. 105. 



Speaking of Dervishes, and Fakirs, and 

 the general hangers-on upon caravans 



The number of these men, throughout Turkey, is 

 more considerable than any one could venture to as- 

 sert, without being thought guilty of exaggeration. 

 In every caravan, they form almost the major part, 

 and consist of men, who, under pretence of either 

 going to, or returning from the pilgrimage, wander 

 from place to place, and live entirely on the libe- 

 rality of the pious. These are generally strong 

 and healthy individuals, capable of earning their 

 living by labour, were they acquainted with any 

 branch of art or manufacture; and are distinct 

 from the halt, the lame, and the blind, who are 

 always objects of charity. The foimer, however, 

 by carrying about them a koran, some talismans, 

 beads, and charms, make a more profitable business 

 of it than those who have nothing to recommend 

 them to the commiseration of their fellow-crea- 

 tures, but their real sufferings, and absolute inca- 

 pacity of remedying them. The number of un- 

 productive beings thus preying upon the rest 

 who are are themselves but barely a remove be- 

 yond them, from their extreme ignorauceof the im- 

 proved methods of labour, and their natural aver- 

 sion to activity occasions a great mass of poverty, 

 which nothing but the wealth that nature has be- 

 stowed upon their climate and soil, the fruits of 

 which may be said to grow up spontaneously to 

 their hands, could at all support. The military 

 and the officers of the government, with a few of the 

 merchants, more active than the rest, who extend 

 their speculations, and move from place to place, 

 are the only rich people in the country. These, 

 however, invariably support a vast number of de- 

 pendents, who are free from every concern, but 

 that of eating, drinking, praying, and sleeping ; so 

 that if the higher orders of society know nothing 

 of those refined pleasures which afford so much 

 delight to our circles, the lower orders, from their 

 temperate habits, their familiarity with the rich, 

 and their freedom from the common cares of life, 

 are certainly more at ease than our.. P. 115. 



Of the people of Mousul, he remarks : 

 I thought I could observe a cast of countenance in 

 them, sufficiently peculiar to mark them as a race 

 nearly allied to, and long settled and intermixed 

 with each other. The shape of the face is rounder 

 than that of either Arabs or Turks, and the hair is 

 universally black, and the eyes small, sharp, and pe- 



