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62. From time immemorial the Arabs of Hillah and its 
suburbs were in the habit of digging in Babylon for bricks 
for building purposes; and it is a known fact that Hillah, 
Sockashayokh, and other small towns and villages on both 
sides of the Euphrates, up and down the river, have been 
built from the materials that had been got out of the ruins of 
that once great city ; and since the value of Babylonian anti- 
quities became known, both Jewish and Armenian brokers of 
Baghdad began to bribe these Arab diggers to sell them any 
inscribed terra-cottas or other relics which might be found in 
the diggings. The labourers did this under the cover of their 
usual avocations, as it was contrary to law to dig for anti- 
quities without a special order from the Porte. 
63. The iniquity of carrying on this kind of smuggling 
cannot be too much condemned, because the Arab style of 
searching for antiquities is too rough to extricate fragile objects 
with care ; and when they find them, in nine cases out of ten 
they break and lose a large part of them ; but, worse than all, 
they try to make a good capital by breaking the inscribed 
objects and dividing them amongst the clandestine purchasers. 
For instance, if an Arab digger had promised the brokers to 
supply them with antiquities, he would not give each indi- 
vidual a share of what was discovered, but lie would break 
sometimes a most valuable relic to divide amongst the different 
buyers, thinking that, by following this system, he would earn 
more money. I myself bought a valuable terra-cotta round 
cylinder for the British Museum when I was at Baghdad, the 
year before last, which had been found at Babylon and met 
with the same fate. The discoverer had tried to saw it in two 
pieces, and while doing so, the upper part broke into a number 
of fragments, some of which were lost. The saw that was used 
for that purpose must have been very rough indeed to gnaw 
off nearly half an inch of the inscription. 
64. I have been obliged to enter into this detail to show 
you the great opposition I was met with on arriving at 
Babylon, because, naturally, my movements were watched 
with great jealousy by both the Arab brick-diggers and those 
who were bribing them to dig for antiquities. I found that I 
had no power to prevent them excavating where I wanted to 
dig myself, as it was known that the practice of digging for 
bricks had been allowed ever since Babylon was destroyed, 
and neither I nor the authorities had any power to stop such 
work ; and to allow the Arabs to do so would curtail my 
operations and cause our work no end of mischief. In the 
first instance I managed to engage one of the brick con- 
