209 
go about much, and superintend tbe different excavations in 
person as I wished. We bad a most trying and unhealthy 
autumn and winter for want of rain, and the whole country, 
embracing Assyria, Irack, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Northern 
Arabia, was parched up ; and consequently the deaths from 
starvation of kine, sheep, and camels, were frightful. As I said 
before, the easiest way to go from Mossul to Baghdad is by 
raft down the river Tigris, and the voyage can be accomplished 
in three days if the river is high, as it is generally in the 
beginning of spring. But when I went down to Baghdad 
myself last February it took me five days to make the voyage, 
as there was very little rise then owing to the scarcity of rain 
and snow during last winter in the mountains of Assyria, 
Koordistan, and Armenia. I have heard since that in conse- 
quence of that great drought the waters of both the Euphrates 
and the Tigris diminished to such an extent that all water 
traffic ceased for a time, and the steamers from the Persian 
Gulf to Baghdad had to land their cargoes in sqme parts of the 
Tigris where the water was very shallow, and have them 
carried to other localities, where other steamers were waiting 
to receive the goods. 
58. Kala Shergat, which is supposed to be the Kesen men- 
tioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis, stands on the same side 
of the Tigris as Mossul, and the distance between them is 
about sixty miles. As I wished to have some work carried on 
at Kala Shergat during my sojourn in Babylonia, I landed 
there and left an overseer with a few workmen to examine 
some parts which I marked out for them. Both the French 
and ourselves had dug there on different occasions, and the 
last time I excavated there was in 1853, when I discovered 
three inscribed terra-cotta cylinders, copies of each other, the 
oldest Assyrian record that has yet come to light, supposed to 
be about 1,200 years b.c. They give an account of the first 
five years of the reign of Tiglath-pileser I., who is said to have 
been the first to organize the country of Assyria and “estab- 
lished the troops of Assyria in authority,” that is to say, the 
first monarch in the history of the world who organized a 
standing army. Since then I have found other interesting 
relics ; but the mound is so large, and the ruins are in such 
utter confusion, as if the whole mound was turned topsy-turvy, 
that it would require unlimited funds and considerable labour 
to examine it thoroughly. There are no villages near Kala 
Shergat, but roving Arabs who are encamping round it, and of 
these I chose my workmen. 
59. The only point we touched at after leaving Kala Sher- 
