440 
NAPHTHA SPRINGS AT KIRKOOK. 
skirting these old Assyrian boundaries ; and those were stunted 
and meagre, in comparison with the ample and luxuriant groves 
which overshadow the waters of Mesopotamia. 
Dec. 10th. — An early hour was fixed this morning for vi¬ 
siting the Naphtha Springs and burning hill, a little way out 
of the direct road to Sulimania. The escort provided me by 
the governor of Kirkook consisted of twenty persons, with 
almost as many kinds of weapons, ancient and modern, from 
the Parthian light javelin, to the present heavy blunderbuss. 
These were appointed to attend me to the object of my cu¬ 
riosity; while an additional Courdish mehmandar, and another 
detachment of fighting-men, with my mules and baggage, were 
to await my return at the suburb of the town, and there falling 
in with the rest of the escort, complete my guard to the city of 
Sulimania. 
These arrangements having been made, we crossed the cul¬ 
tivated country in a direction N. 20° W. ; and after a gallop of 
little more than a quarter of an hour, reached a range of low 
hills, crowned with a regular line of rock rising from their 
clayey and sulphurous brows. On the side of one of these hills, 
and which faces the north-west, Strabo describes the situation 
of the Naphtha Springs. They are ten in number. For a con¬ 
siderable distance from them we felt the air sulphurous ; but in 
drawing near, it became worse, and we were all instantly struck 
with excruciating head-aches. The springs consist of several pits 
or wells, seven or eight feet in diameter, and ten or twelve 
deep. The whole number are within the compass of four or 
five hundred yards. A flight of steps has been cut into each pit 
for the purpose of approaching the fluid, which rises and falls 
according to the dryness or moisture of the weather. The 
