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XI. Some Account of the Ruins of Ahwaz. By Lieutenant Robert 

 MiGNAX, of the First Bombay European Regiment ; ivith Notes hy 

 Captain Robert Taylor, Resident at Bussorah. 



Read June 14, 1828. 



It having been my intention for some time to visit a few of the ruined 

 cities whose decay has converted reahns into desarts, and strewed the 

 path of the shepherd with fragments of arches and pillars that once arose 

 in majesty over heroic warriors, I set out in September 1826, for the 

 purpose of examining the remains of the once celebrated city of Ahwaz, 

 lying on the banks of the noble river Karun. 



As there are only a few ruined villages (unworthy the travellei-'s and 

 reader's notice) until its immediate vicinity is reached, I shall pass over the 

 time that elapsed during my journey. It is sufficient to state that the whole 

 country is a perfectly flat and uncultivated waste, abandoned by its former 

 inhabitants to rapacious animals, and to still fiercer hordes of wild and 

 ferocious Arabs, who occasionally pitch their flying camps here when in 

 search of pasturage or plunder. 



Previous to my quitting Bussorah I procured Kinneir's Geographical 

 Memoir of the Persian Empire (the only book I have seen in our 

 language that attempts any description of Ahwaz), as a guide and for 

 reference. 



Tlie modern town of Ahwaz occupies but a small portion of the site of 

 the old city, on the eastern bank of the Karun, and exhibits a mean and 

 solitary appearance, contrasted with the immense mass of ruin that rears its 

 rugged head behind. Its houses are built entirely of stone brought from 

 the ruins, and it can only boast of one decent building, a mosque, 

 apparently modern. The population at present does not exceed sixteen 

 hundred souls. Considerable traces are discernible of the bund that was 

 thrown across the river, chiefly, if not entirely, for the purposes of irrigation. 

 A part of the wall is still standing, remarkable for its high state of preserva- 



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