A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 8 | Page 5

the river, encompass the city.[3] Bagdat is above two English
miles in circumference. The inhabitants, who generally speak three
languages, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, are much of the same
complexion with the Spaniards. The women mostly wear, in the gristle
of the nose, a ring like a wedding-ring, but rather larger, having a pearl
and a turquoise stone set in it; and this however poor they may be. This
is a place of great trade, being the thoroughfare from the East Indies to
Aleppo. The town is well supplied with provisions, which are brought
down the river Tigris from Mosul, in Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia,
where stood the ancient city of Nineveh. These provisions, and various
other kinds of goods, are brought down the river Tigris on rafts of
wood, borne up by a great number of goat-skin bags, blown up with
wind like bladders. When the goods are discharged, the rafts are sold
for fuel, and letting the wind out of the goat skins, they carry them
home again upon asses, to serve for other voyages down the river.
[Footnote 3: It may be proper to remark, as not very distinctly marked
here, though expressed afterwards in the text, that Bagdat is on the east
side of the Tigris, whereas the plain, or desert of ancient Babylon, is on
the west, between that river and the Euphrates.--E.]
The buildings here are mostly of brick, dried in the sun, as little or no
stone is to be found, and their houses are all low and flat-roofed. They
have no rain for eight months together, and hardly any clouds in the sky
by day or night. Their winter is in November, December, January, and

February, which is almost as warm as our summer in England. I know
this well by experience, having resided, at different times, in this city
for at least the space of two years. On coming into the city from
Feluchia, we have to pass across the river Tigris on a great bridge of
boats, which are held together by two mighty chains of iron.
From this place we departed in flat-bottomed boats, which were larger
and more strongly built than those on the Euphrates. We were
twenty-eight days also in going down this river to Basora, though we
might have gone in eighteen days, or less, if the water had been higher.
By the side of the river there stand several towns, the names of which
resemble those of the prophets of the Old Testament. The first of these
towns is called Ozeah, and another Zecchiah. One day's journey before
we came to Basora, the two rivers unite, and there stands, at the
junction, a castle belonging to the Turks, called Curna, where all
merchants have to pay a small custom. Where the two rivers join, their
united waters are eight or nine miles broad; and here also the river
begins to ebb and flow, the overflowing of the water rendering all the
country round about very fertile in corn, rice, pulse, and dates.
The town of Basora is a mile and a half in circuit; all the houses, with
the castle and the walls, being of brick dried in the sun. The Grand
Turk has here five hundred janisaries always in garrison, besides other
soldiers; but his chief force consists in twenty-five or thirty fine gallies,
well furnished with good ordnance. To this port of Basora there come
every month divers ships from Ormus, laden with all sorts of Indian
goods, as spices, drugs, indigo, and calico cloth. These ships are from
forty to sixty tons burden, having their planks sewed together with
twine made of the bark of the date-palm; and, instead of oakum, their
seams are filled with slips of the same bark, of which also their tackle
is made. In these vessels they have no kind of iron-work whatever,
except their anchors. In six days sail down the Gulf of Persia, they go
to an island called. Bahrein, midway to Ormus, where they fish for
pearls during the four months of June, July, August, and September.
I remained six months at Basora, in which time I received several
letters from Mr John Newberry, then at Ormus, who, as he passed that
way, proceeded with letters, from her majesty to Zelabdim Echebar,
king of Cambaia,[4] and to the mighty Emperor of China, was
treacherously there arrested, with all his company, by the Portuguese,

and afterwards sent prisoner to Goa, where, after a long and cruel
imprisonment, he and his companions were released, upon giving
surety not to depart from thence without leave, at the instance of one
Father Thomas Stevens, an English priest, whom they found there.
Shortly afterwards three of them made their escape, of whom Mr Ralph
Fitch is since come to England. The fourth,