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an Arab or Koordish encampment a traveller must go direct 
to the chief’s tent, who alone is expected to show hospitality 
to a stranger of whatever nationality or religion he may be. 
12. There is a much shorter route between the Mediter- 
ranean and Babylon by way of Dair at the junction of the 
river Khaboor (Chebar of the Bible), but it is not always safe 
to travel through that almost deserted country, because, 
marauding parties of both the Iniza and Shammar Arabs are 
always going about in those parts seeking for plunder. It is 
also difficult to obtain the necessary supplies for one's comfort 
and living through that long journey. 
13. There are also two other routes by which a traveller 
might reach Babylon ; one which is extremely short, but both 
unsafe and fatiguing, and the other very easy and comfortable, 
but somewhat long and, to a person who is not fond of a long 
sea-voyage, might prove somewhat unpleasant and tedious. 
Those who like to rough it, and are able to ride about 500 
miles on the back of a camel and see no life excepting un- 
welcome Bedouins, who have no scruple whatever to plunder 
them and leave them to starve in the desert, can travel by coach 
from Beyrout to Damascus where they join the English post, 
which goes on camels fortnightly between Damascus and 
Baghdad. Travelling in such a manner an inexperienced 
person must make up his mind to be shaken to pieces the first 
day he mounts that awkward animal, but as soon as his limbs 
get accustomed to the jog-jogging of that monster the rest of 
the journey will seem comparatively easy. This mode of 
travelling occupies ten or twelve days, and most of the way 
the traveller is in deadly fear of being plundered or killed by 
a marauding party of the Bedouin Arabs, or being buried in a 
sand-storm, or, worse than all, dying of thirst. 
14. But a person who is fond of a long sea-voyage can get 
into a comfortable English steamer in the London Docks, and 
land in the centre of Babylon by merely changing steamers at 
Basra at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. He can then travel 
with great comfort, and fare on English diet on the very ruins 
of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. By this last route it would 
take about forty days to make the voyage, because, generally 
speaking, those trading steamers have to visit many ports on 
the way between England and the Persian Gulf to make the 
voyage profitable. By this route Gibraltar and Malta are 
touched at in going through the Mediterranean, and after the 
steamer passes through the Suez Canal and down the Bed Sea 
it touches at Jeddah, the port of the Hijaz or the holy land of 
the Moslems. Thence she goes to the British port of Aden, 
