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Arab friend was in having been asked to partake of a bit of a dog ! 

 But I soon set the matter right by explaining to the pious Moslem 

 the unintentional mistake. Mr. Tomkins has alluded to the disco- 

 veries I have been enabled to make amongst the ruined cities of the East. 

 I am sorry I cannot, for the present, say much about what I have recently 

 been doing, or I should have given you here, before this, an account of my 

 discoveries. Indeed, with one exception, I have not much to tell you 

 beyond what I stated in my lecture two years ago. I will, however, offer you 

 a brief statement of what I have lately discovered. In the beginning of 

 last year, while I was going about seeking for old ruins, as you know I am 

 always doing, for the purpose of discovering something more of the old cities 

 that lie buried there, I met an Arab who told me that he knew of an old 

 ruined city, the remains of which were to be found within four hours' journey 

 of Bagdad, that is to say, about twelve miles, taking the computation 

 at three miles au hour. As I never refuse to act on any information likely 

 to prove useful, I said I would go with him to the place indicated. I there- 

 fore accompanied him, and while we were riding along the route pointed out 

 by my companion, we came, at a distance of five hours from Bagdad,* upon 

 an old ruin of a great magnitude, which I had not seen before ; so large was 

 it that it must have been, indeed, three miles round. I at first thought 

 that that was the place of which he had spoken, so I said to him, " Oh ! this 

 is the place." He replied, " No ; this is not the place I told you of ; it is 

 further on." I then asked, "What is this place?" He answered, "I do 

 not know." However, I made up my mind that I would certainly explore 

 it when I returned from the other pursuit. We then proceeded onwardsi 

 and at length the Arab brought me to the site, which had a most wonderful 

 ancient Babylonian wall. I at once set to work there, but found nothing 

 of any value, and soon afterwards went back to the place I had first seen, 

 and commenced a thorough search. The result was that after digging for 

 four days the workmen came upon the top of some walls, which were found 

 to belong to an extensive ancient building, in which we soon began to find 

 inscribed objects and other relics. I may here remark that I am not an 

 Assyrian scholar. I am only a discoverer of Assyrian antiquities, which I 

 send to the British Museum to be deciphered by those who have made 

 Assyriology a study. We first of all discovered four rooms, and then we 

 came upon a fifth. The first four rooms were paved in what I should call 

 the Assyrian or Babylonian style, i.e., with bricks or stone, but the fifth 

 was paved with asphalte, the discovery of which brought to my mind the 

 saying of Solomon that " there is nothing new under the sun." As this 

 seemed to me a very singular discovery, I ordered the breaking up of 

 the floor, and after we had dug about three feet into it, we were 

 rewarded by the discovery of an inscribed terra cotta coffer, with a lid over 



* On this journey I was not proceeding from Bagdad to visit these 

 ruins, but I was out travelling in fcfoutheru Mesopotamia, and going towards 

 the city of the Califs. H. BASS AM. 



