"تاريخ البحرية الهندية. (١٦١٣- ١٨٦٣)." [‎٤‎٨] (٦٢٢/٦٧)

48
HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
the Royal Geographical Society on the 27th of May, 1844—
says 44 Lieuteuant Selby, by his courage, his perseverance,
and his scientific knowledge, was admirably calculated for an
expedition of this nature. He has connected by scientific
observations the course of the Eulaeus, the Choaspes, the
Coprates, and the Pasitigris, with the range of mountains
forming the great chain running to the east of Sinister, and
with the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. He has proved the
practicability of rivers, the course of which was hitherto almost
unknown." 46 Such are the terms," said Sir Roderick Murchison
in conclusion, "in which this important expedition is an
nounced, and they are certainly such as Lieutenant Selby's
successful efforts eminently warrant." His career of usefulness
was, however, temporarily cut short, and his life nearly ter
minated, by some severe wounds he received in an encounter
with an overpowering force of i\rabs of the El Meidan tribe, on
the western bank of the river Tigris, below Bagdad, when he
exhibited a reckless gallantry such as w T e read of in the pages
of romances of the G. P. R. James type. The affair took place
in the month of June, 1841, during the absence at Beles of
Lieutenants Campbell, Jones, and Grounds, when Lieutenant
Selby was in temporary charge of the depots on the river
ligris; and the wounds he received were of so severe a nature
that Assistant-Surgeon Ross, of the British Residency at
Bagdad, invalided him to England.
On the 20th of August, 1841, Commander Lynch # reassumed
the command of the Expedition at Beles, and, on the 1st of
September, commenced the descent of the river, w^hen, owing to
the unfavourable time of the year, one of the steamers, the
'Nimrod,' was sunk by a snag, on the 16th of February, 1843,
but was raised after much difficulty.
Meanwhile, between the 1st of September and the following
April, Commander Lynch and his assistants utilized the time
in continuing the survey of the river. He says in his Memoir,
in three parts, of the River Euphrates f— 44 The survey of the
river Euphrates was commenced in the month of October, 1841,
in the steam vessels 'Nitocris' and 4 Nimrod,' under the com
mand of Commander H. Blosse Lynch, assisted by Lieutenants
# He attained the rank of commander on the 21st of February, and had
already received the insignia of a " Knight of the Lion and Sun " from the Shah
an order of Chivalry instituted by his predecessor in 1800, in honour of
an iingushman—Sir John Malcolm—who was twice "Elchee," or Envoy, at his
Court, i he Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company (Limited), who
Have placed a line of steamers between Bussorah and Bagdad, have recently
commemorated the great services of Captain Lynch as one of the pioneers of
steam navigation on those waters and the first surveyor of Mesopotamia, by
naming a fine steamer, 220 feet in length and 600 tons burden, the ' Blosse Lynch'
airer him. J
, + Tra , nsaf i t; ™ s of the Bombay Geographical Society," vol. yi. pp. 169-186,
tor me Memoir which was communicated by Government.