390 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



quiries he informed us that wild boar, as we had sup- 

 posed, were sometimes the occupants of the little 

 patch of covert. But the name of the unclean ani- 

 mal had no sooner passed the Kurd's lips, than such 

 sonorous maledictions, such sweeping curses, rolled 

 from off his true believing tongue, that we at once 

 saw the impropriety we had committed in mention- 

 ing an animal so distasteful, so utterly abhorrent, to 

 so orthodox a follower of the Prophet as our Kurd 

 evidently professed himself to be. In our hearts, 

 we knew this eloquent cursing of the Kurd's was 

 simply a little bit of affectation. Had some grisly 

 old boar been lying dead on the plains, with his 

 throat properly cut, and turned towards Mecca the 

 Holy, our Kurd would have walked away though 

 perhaps not openly with a piece of the forbidden 

 flesh, as well as the veriest Christian amongst us. 

 After a ride of about eight miles, we were at the foot 

 of the Birs-N"imrood. Our horses' feet were tramp- 

 ling upon the remains of bricks which showed here 

 and there through the accumulated dust and rubbish 

 of ages. Before our eyes uprose a great mound of 

 earth, barren and bare. This was the Birs-Nimrood, 

 the ruins of the Tower of Babel, by which the first 

 builders of the earth had vainly hoped to scale high 

 heaven. Here also it was that Nebuchadnezzar built, 

 for bricks bearing his name have been found in the 

 ruins. At the top of the mound a great mass of 

 brickwork pierces the accumulated soil. With your 



