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

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 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,