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82. In both the mounds of Kala Shergat and Koyunjik 
where excavations were carried on during my absence, some 
small objects of antiquity had been found ; and after having 
spent a month longer at Mossul in packing up the different 
relics discovered in Assyria to take with me to England, and 
arranged as to leaving about thirty men under the superin- 
tendence of my nephew to go on with the excavations at 
Koyunjik, I started on my homeward journey in the beginning 
of May through Northern Mesopotamia, leaving the mountain 
of Sinjar this time on my right. 
83. I had intended on going direct west to the river 
Khaboor* to make some excavations in a number of mounds 
on its eastern and western banks which were reported to me 
to be of Assyrian origin. Although I saw an unaccountable 
number of mounds scattered on the right and left of my 
route I only cared about examining three or four of those 
which seemed to me worth digging at ; but, unfortunately, 
I could not find any workmen to enable me to make the 
intended trial, as the late drought had driven all the Arabs, 
who usually encamped around these mounds, further north, 
for the sake of pasture for their cattle and food for themselves. 
Indeed, provisions were so scarce in the country that I was 
obliged to forego a visit which I had intended to make to 
the supposed site of Carchemish, and for two whole days our 
poor animals had to feed on a scanty supply. 
84. At the foot of one of the mounds on the left side of the 
Khaboor I found the upper part of a black basalt tablet, or 
stele, of an Assyrian king, which had been broken and hurled 
down to the bottom by the Arabs when they were digging a 
grave. It was too large for me to move, and having no 
tools to thin it with, so that it might be carried on the 
back of a mule, I had it buried deep in the mound where I 
found it, trusting to future time when I could manage to have 
it thinned and moved to Aleppo or Mossul. 
85. My homeward route lay this time through Telaafar the 
capital of Sinjar, called Balad Taban, on the left side of the 
Khaboor, and then along its bank until we came to a ford, 
which is called Shareeat-Ihlala, where we crossed and journeyed 
then on the right bank of the said river until we reached 
Ibsairaf at the junction of the Khaboor with the Euphrates. 
We then went on to Dair, the largest town in those parts, 
* This Khaboor or 4 ‘ Chebar ” is supposed to be the river mentioned by 
Ezekiel, in ch. i. 1. 
t This Ibsaira was supposed formerly to be the site of Carchemish* 
