'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎14] (45/582)

14
FROM BAGDAD, ACROSS THE DIALA,
country was at all visible througli the palm-trees, was one level
and desert plain,* in which the sun set at W. by N .f N. by com
pass, and the moon succeeded without an interval of twilight.
S ept. 6th.—We were in motion before the moon had set;
and just as the day broke we quitted the town, when the sun
greeted our departure as he rose from behind the blue ridge of
hills immediately before us.
Our march was directed to the east-north-east, over a plain
somewhat less bare than that which we had traversed during the
two preceding days, and having tobacco and dourra growing in seve
ral parts of it. Camels were also feeding in the neighbourhood,
and were the first that we had seen since leaving Bagdad. These
signs of life and activity were entirely owing to the presence of
water, of which we crossed several small canals and one large one,
with rushes on its banks. The whole of the low country indeed,
on both sides of the Tigris and the Euphrates, wants only the
irrigation which could be so easily given it by canals from these
rivers, to render it as fertile as Egypt or the river-lands of
China: but in the absence of this, as the heats are excessive, and
little rain falls even in the winter, the whole has fallen by
neglect into general barrenness.
In an hour after quitting Shahraban, we came to the main
stream from which the smaller ones of the plain were derived,
and crossed it by a brick bridge of a single arch. This is called
* The Nisean horses are placed by Ammianus Marcellinus in the plains of a fertile country
of Assyria, on the western side of a high mountain called Corone. This is evidently a part
of a chain called Zagros, Orontes, and Jason, in the same place; and Corone is written per
haps Clone, the name of the district where these horses were bred.-^. Mar. book xxiii
am'tb "f PP " I' n 0 ' ^ the f00t 0f M0Unt JaS -' w ^h is the
same therefore with Orontes. b. xxm. c. xvi. p. 27 3. It W as in the march of Alexander
Bel I niT' Cel0nae ' PlaCe XerXeS had P e0 P led with ^ colony of
tana Th'tt 0 TT u ^ ^ ^ ^ and 0n his towa ^ ^oL
tana that he is said to have viewed the field wherein the King's horses used to ff raze
which Herodotus calls Niseeum, and the horses Niscean, and where, in former times 150 000
were wont to feed, though Alexander found not more than 50,000 here, most of the r t hav
mg been stolen away.-^, a „ b. vii. c ,3. vol i p 150