'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎257] (366/496)

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20°; peak of Baziyan, 22° ; bluff end of Bamu, 41i°; brow of Dalahu, 63°;
Sun at rising, forvariation, 79^° ; centre of Band-i-Noah, 81°30 / ; distant
peak to the S. Eastward, supposed to be Manisht, 119°3CK. Proceeded
onwards at 5’33, passing over cultivated grounds watered by the small
canal Merjaniyeh, a cut from the Diyaleh. At 6*30 reached Kizd-robat,*
a small village farmed this year by our friend Kader Pacha, who received
us very kindly, and entertained us with true Kurdish hospitality.
Though we required rest after night travelling, we were as usual doomed
to disappointment—the excessive heat and annoying flies preventing the
obtaining any: we however managed to drag through a long and weary
day in conversation with our host, and in working out the observations
taken on the journey. Most of the Kurds are inquisitive, but not im
pertinently so, and we derived some amusement in answering the
numerous queries of our entertainer, who is a well-educated man, and
conversant with most of the oriental authors. Of high birth and well
connected, he was at one time selected to govern the Turco-Kurdish
Pachalic of Sulimaniyeh, which gave him his present title of Pacha ; but
from'some intrigue he never reached his court. Devotedly attached to
hunting, he spends most of his time in some favored retreat, or in super
intending his farm. His appearance is as patriarchal as his habits are
abstemious, and his manners mild and conciliating. No wonder, then,
that he is beloved by his ryots and followers. We had known Kader
Pacha in Baghdad, and were delighted again to meet him on his ground,
and share the hospitality which was warmly extended to us. After
partaking of a farewell meal in his company, and discussing the policy of
European States, which he is extremely fond of, we took a reluctant
leave; the old man, with a falcon on his wrist, accompanying us some
distance on the road, attended by a troop of armed retainers, and some
pyreal form of disposing of the dead. Diodorus, in speaking of the customs of
Semiramis, remarks: “ In champaign countries, she would raise eminences, on which
she would sometimes build sepulchres for her officers and commanders, and at other
times towns and cities. Through her whole expeditions she always used to raise
an ascent, upon which she pitched her own pavilion, that from thence she might
have a view of her whole army. Many things which she performed in Asia re
main to this day, and are called Setniramis’s works.’’
I shall have occasion again to allude to these singular structures in other parts
of the Journal, more particularly when journeying through the plain of Shahrizur,
but l may here add, that on the plains of Waterloo, traces of these ancient usages,
commemorative of that glorious event, and of those who fell, may be witnessed at
the present time, in the modern structures that have been raised since 1815,
* Kiz’l-robat, by double altitudes of the O, is in latitude 34° 10' 5l f/ N., by its
Mer. Alt. 34° 10' 59 A/ N., and 40' 27' / East of Baghdad. The magnetic varia
tion in 1844 was 3° 5' West.