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Arab friend was in having been asked to partake of a bit of a dog ! 
Bqt I soon set the matter right by explaining to the pious Moslem 
the unintentional mistake. Mr. Tomkins has alluded to the disco- 
veries I have been enabled to make amongst the ruined cities of the East. 
I am sorry I cannot, for the present, say much about what I have recently 
been doing, or I should have given you here, before this, an account of my 
discoveries. Indeed, with one exception, I have not much to tell you 
beyond what I stated in my lecture two years ago. I will, however, offer you 
a brief statement of what I have lately discovered. In the beginning of 
last year, while I was going about seeking for old ruins, as you know I am 
always doing, for the purpose of discovering something more of the old cities 
that lie buried there, I met an Arab who told me that he knew of an old 
ruined city, the remains of which were to be found within four hours’ journey 
of Bagdad, — that is to say, about twelve miles, taking the computation 
at three miles an hour. As I never refuse to act on any information likely 
to prove useful, I said I would go with him to the place indicated. I there- 
fore accompanied him, and while we were riding along the route pointed out 
by my companion we came, at a distance of five hours from Bagdad,* upon 
an old ruip of a great magnitude, which I had not seen before ; so large was 
it that it must have been, indeed, three miles round. I at first thought 
that that was the place of which he had spoken, so I said to him, “ Oh ! this 
is the place.” He replied, “ No ; this is not the place I told you of ; it is 
further on.” I then asked, “What is this place?” He answered, “I do 
not know.” However, I made up my mind that I would certainly explore 
it when I returned from the other pursuit. We then proceeded onwards, 
and at length the Arab brought me to the site, which had a most wonderful 
ancient Babylonian wall. I at once set to work there, but found nothing 
of any value, and soon afterwards went back to the place I had first seen, 
and commenced a thorough search. The result was that after digging for 
four days the workmen came upon the top of some walls, which were found 
to belong to an extensive ancient building, in which we soon began to find 
inscribed objects and other relics. I may here remark that I am not an 
Assyrian scholar. I am only a discoverer of Assyrian antiquities, which I 
send to the British Museum to be deciphered by those who have made 
Assyriology a study. We first of all discovered four rooms, and then we 
came upon a fifth. The first four rooms were paved in what I should call 
the Assyrian or Babylonian style, i.e., with bricks or stone, but the fifth 
.was paved with asphalte, the discovery of which brought to my mind the 
saying of Solomon that “ there is nothing new under the sun.” As this 
seen:^ed to me a very singular discovery, I ordered the breaking up of 
the floor, and after we had dug about three feet into it we were 
rewarded by the discovery of an inscribed terra cotta coffer, with a lid over 
* On this journey I was not proceeding from Bagdad to visit these 
ruins, but I was out travelling in Southern Mesopotamia, and going towards 
the city of the Califs. — H. Bassam. 
