320 Journal of a Steam Trip to the north of Baghdad. [April, 



Passed many encampments of the Shammar on the right bank near 

 Hawcisilat. They extend nearly up to Mosul. These people are how- 

 ever, migrating towards Baghdad, as Suffok, the chief Sheikh, advances 

 to the south. The parties of Nejiris and Suffok, are now not on friendly 

 terms owing to Nejib, Pasha of Baghdad, having invested the former as 

 Sheikh of the tribe, while the latter claims it as a right. Ahmed el 

 Kode (a connection by marriage of Suffok) informed me this morning 

 that the Abei<1 once possessed the whole of Northern Mesopotamia, 

 and that the present Shammar usurped the country in rather an origi- 

 nal way, but a way nevertheless adopted even by more civilized nations 

 than the predatory Arab races. He says " Two Shammar families with 

 their tents originally wandered from Nejd, and after some time encamp- 

 ed with the Abeid. Among the chattels of the new comers a wooden 

 bowl of extraordinary dimensions was observed, but it excited no fur- 

 ther curiosity until the strangers invited some of the then holders of 

 the soil to a feast, when the bowl was set before the guests, filled with 

 the carcasses of sheep, butter, and the usual ingredients of Arab-fare. 

 The dinner was duly discussed and the Abeid on returning to their 

 tents were talking of the munificence of the strangers and the unusual 

 dimensions of the wonderful bowl. A grey-beard of the tribe, who 

 had not been at the feast, listened in silence for some time, and starting 

 up to the dismay of his friends, demanded that the newly arrived 

 strangers should be immediately put to death, adding with the air of a 

 prophet, that the famous bowl told a story in itself, and that ere long, 

 many strange fingers would be dipped iuto it. It literally happened 

 as the old man had foretold. His voice was overruled in the assembly 

 and the strangers' lives were spared. A few months afterwards, Sham- 

 mar after Shammar arrived and feasted from the much dreaded bowl. 

 A few years sufficed for the total expulsion of the Abeid, and from 

 being lords of the soil, that once powerful tribe became fellahs and 

 slaves to the formidable Shammar." Such was Ahmed's account of the 

 origin of the Shammar in Mesopotamia, but nevertheless the Abeid are 

 still powerful enough to render themselves obnoxious to the Govern- 

 ment. They at present occupy the country opposite Tekrit and, I 

 believe, now never cross into Mesopotamia. 



At 3 hours 15 minutes the tomb of Imam Mahomed Dur at Dur* 



* Dura was a fortified place in the wars of" Autiochus against the rebels of Media and 

 Persia. Note in Gibbon from Polybius, Vol. 3, page 226. 



