Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

THE EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS.
back until he came upon the desert, and he
encamped here for a few days. And in this The Euphra.
place he found the river Euphrates, which goeth °^'
forth out of a huge cave, which is [situated] below
very high mountains, and Alexander and his men
went on again until he descended Herwis,' to the
place where the Tigris riseth; now this river is
like unto the Euphrates, for they both are mighty
rivers. Then he went on again until he came
nigh unto Gaweza, and he ascended into the
h^ghts of those lofty mountains, which are above Alexander's
the earth, and the mountains, and the rivers. And cai °"o°b^er-
he went up still higher,^ and saw the heavens ''^''°"^'
and the orbits thereof, and the stars and their
stations, and the courses thereof, and he wrote
down the calculations concerning them which Nim-
rod,^ the mighty man, had made, and the times
the mountain of Mash, in which the ancient Babylonian hero
Gilgamish travelled, see Meissner, Alexander and Gilgamos,
P- 13-
' In the Syriac, Haluras (p. 149). Haluras is described
by the Arabic geographers as a place near the source of
the Tigris, two and a half days' journey from Amid ^^^J^Jot
•:• j^l i-_yi lJ>-^^ j-_,X«^_ J.> i*J,=..> ^ jSS^ l>-U g^_yo ; see Yakut,
tom. IV. p. ivi: JuynboU, Mardsid, torn. iii. p. rrr.
^ /. e., he probably ascended the mountain called Ramatb,
where there was a watch-tower; it was from this point, ac-
cording to the Syriac, that he saw the four quarters of
heaven.
J It was in the reign of Nimrod, the son of Canaan, that
the worship of fire and of the stars appeared upon the earth
vlyVlj ^\y^\ 'i>\^ j'P''^ (_5^ Jj^>-=»( 'iy^ f^ i_s*^- The stars