286 
THE BOURSA SHISHARA. 
space, like an island. Our course lay south 10° west from this 
point of the road, and whence we saw the Tepesse of Akarkouff, 
in a direction north 70° west. 
In about two hours we reached the Kiahya khaun ; so named 
from having been built by a Kiahya, or minister of a former 
pasha: and, from the rate our horses walked, I should estimate 
its distance from Bagdad at nearly seven miles. Having ridden 
onward a couple more, we observed a rather elevated pile, 
standing a considerable way out of the road to the south-east; 
the natives call it the Boursa Shishara. After a quarter of an 
hour’s brisk canter, we arrived before it, and found that its height 
might measure thirty feet, including a sort of sloping mass 
whence it appeared to rise, similar to the rubbish-hillock round 
the foundation of the Tepesse at Akarkouff. The whole compo¬ 
sition of the Boursa Shishara, is like that of the Tepesse, except 
that the courses of reeds (which were in as good preservation as 
those at Akarkouff,) were spread between layers of only two bricks 
deep. From the mode and materials of construction being so 
much the same in both, there can hardly be a doubt that they 
owe their origin to the same period; and around this latter relic 
of antiquity, at some little distance from its base, we remarked 
many scattered fragments of bricks, tiles, and other vestiges of 
former building. We easily ascended to the top of the Boursa 
Shishara, and thence had a distinct view of the Tackt-i-Kesr, on 
the eastern shore of the Tigris. It is the remains of the palace 
of Noushirvan, or Chosroes the Great, at Ctesiphon ; and bore 
north 70° east from us. 
On considering the circumstances generally related of Alexan¬ 
der’s death, and that he marched from Ecbatana to Babylon, where 
the event happened; it occurred to me, while standing on the 
