A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 8 | Page 4

provisions, and furnished
ourselves for a long journey down the river; and, according to the
custom of those who travel on this river, we provided a small bark for
the conveyance of ourselves and our goods. These boats are
flat-bottomed, because the river is shallow in many places; and when
people travel in the months of July, August, and September, the water
being then at the lowest, they have to carry a spare boat or two along
with them, to lighten their own boats in case of grounding on the shoals.
We were twenty-eight days upon the river in going between Bir and
Feluchia, at which last place we disembarked ourselves and our goods.
During our passage down the Euphrates, we tied our boat to a stake
every night at sun-set, when we went on land and gathered some sticks
to make a fire, on which we set our pot, with rice or bruised wheat; and

when we had supped, the merchants went on board to sleep, while the
mariners lay down for the night on the shore, as near the boats as they
could. At many places on the river side we met with troops of Arabs, of
whom we bought milk, butter, eggs, and lambs, giving them in barter,
for they care not for money, glasses, combs, coral, amber, to hang
about their necks; and for churned milk we gave them bread and
pomegranate peels, with which they tan their goat skins which they use
for churns. The complexion, hair, and apparel of these Arabs, are
entirely like to those vagabond Egyptians who heretofore used to go
about in England. All their women, without one exception, wear a great
round ring of gold, silver, or iron, according to their abilities, in one of
their nostrils, and about their legs they have hoops of gold, silver, or
iron. All of them, men, women, and children, are excellent swimmers,
and they often brought off in this manner vessels with milk on their
heads to our barks. They are very thievish, as I proved to my cost, for
they stole a casket belonging to me, containing things of good value,
from under my man's head as he lay asleep.
At Bir the Euphrates is about as broad as the Thames at Lambeth, in
some places broader, and in others narrower, and it runs very swiftly,
almost as fast as the Trent. It has various kinds of fish, all having scales,
some like our barbels, as large as salmon. We landed at Feluchia on the
28th of June, and had to remain there seven days for want of camels to
carry our goods to Babylon, [Bagdat,] the heat at that season being so
violent that the people were averse from hiring their camels to travel.
Feluchia is a village of some hundred houses, and is the place
appointed for discharging such goods as come down the river, the
inhabitants being all Arabs. Not being able to procure camels, we had
to unlade our goods, and hired an hundred asses to carry our English
merchandize to New Babylon, or Bagdat, across a short desert, which
took us eighteen hours of travelling, mostly in the night and morning,
to avoid the great heat of the day.
In this short desert, between the Euphrates and Tigris, formerly stood
the great and mighty city of ancient Babylon, many of the old ruins of
which are easily to be seen by day-light, as I, John Eldred, have often
beheld at my good leisure, having made three several journeys between
Aleppo and New Babylon. Here also are still to be seen the ruins of the
ancient Tower of Babel, which, being upon plain ground, seems very

large from afar; but the nearer you come towards it, it seems to grow
less and less. I have gone sundry times to see it, and found the remnants
still standing above a quarter of a mile in circuit, and almost as high as
the stone-work of St Paul's steeple in London, but much bigger.[2] The
bricks remaining in this most ancient monument are half a yard thick,
and three quarters long, having been dried in the sun only; and between
every course of bricks there is a course of matts made of canes, which
still remain as sound as if they had only lain one year.
[Footnote 2: It is hardly necessary to observe, that this refers to the old
St Paul's before the great fire, and has no reference to the present
magnificent structure, built long after the date of this journey.--E.]
The new city of Babylon, or Bagdat, joins to the before-mentioned
small desert, in which was the old city, the river Tigris running close
under the walls, so that they might easily open a ditch, and make the
waters of