"سرد لإقامة في كردستان وفي موقع نينوى القديمة؛ مع مذكرات رحلة إلى بغداد عبر نهر دجلة ووصف زيارة إلى شيراز وبرسبوليس." [‎٥‎٠] (٤٥٠/٧٧)

50
SITE OF THISBE'S WELL. [CH. XIV.
cient to show that it was building, all the forms being
strictly and unequivocally artificial, consisting of
right angles, and stumps of piers, buttresses, or
pillars. These remains covered several square yards,
but are only a couple of feet above the ground. It is
quite clear too that they are not cut out, but built.
They are no doubt formed by the common rubbisli
of the country, that is to say, of pebbles and soil,
well rammed down, with perhaps what is called a
wash of lime poured upon it, which in a short time
would bind the whole together, and convert it into a
solid mass, exactly like a natural rock; for in some
of these conglomerations, where they had crumbled
away, I found pieces of lime-mortar, and in others
some layers of indurated mud, as if it had been dis
tilled, when wet, through the mass, and had filled up
the hollows which it had found near the bottom. I
still rode on in this sunken way, remarking, as I
went along, some other vestiges of building on the
sides. The bottom of it is ploughed. It appears as
if it had been closed up by building, possibly a gate
way *. A semicircular hollow way leaves it at
this end, and returns to it again a little south of the
Kermelis road; and it is in this semicircle, or more
correctly arc, that Thisbe's well is situated at lour
hundred and ninety feet north of the Kermelis road-
I rode all through the arc to its rejunction with the
* The level of this curious hollow way is much above the bed
formed by the inundations of the Khausser,