Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

318 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LAXDS
On the way to Baghdad Harper handed in his resignation,
Field gave his own a day later, Haynes, who, on the
recommendation of the Philadelphia Committee, had been
appointed United States Consul at Baghdad, prepared to
settle in the city of Harun ar-Rashid, and with Noorian to
await farther developments, Peters was recalled by cable
to America, and the present writer was requested to remain
in charge of the expedition in Mesopotamia. But circumstances
beyond his control made it impossible for him to
accept this trust at once, and necessitated his immediate
return to Europe. 1 Our first year at Babylonia had ended in
a serious disaster. Dr. Peters, to quote his own words,
"had failed to win the confidence of his comrades," 2 and
more than S 20,000 had been expended merely to scratch
the surface of one of the most enormous ancient sites in
all Western Asia. How would the Ottoman government
view the unexpected turn in our work among the turbulent
Arabs ?
Would they allow the expedition to return
1
In the fall of 1888, when I departed from Germany for the East, my
wife was so ill that her recovery was doubtful. Upon her own special request,
however, I left her to meet my obligations in Asia. Soon after my
return from Nuffar to Baghdad, April, 1 8 89, I was informed that meanwhile
she had been operated upon unsuccessfully, and that a second operation, for
which mv immediate return was required, was necessary. Twelve years
later, when I was in the Orient again upon an important mission in connection
with this expedition, she actually sacrificed herself for the cause of science,
bv concealing her serious illness in order not to interfere with my work,
and by writing cheerful and encouraging letters to me, while she was sinking
fast, and knew that she would not recover. When I finally returned to Germany
in perfect ignorance of her condition, she was already beyond human
aid and died soon afterwards (March, 1902), using the last hours of her
unselfish life to execute a noble deed in the interest of Assyriology.
2
Comp. Peters, " Nippur," New York, 1897, vol. i, p. 288. Besides
this volume, which gives a subjectively colored and not always very reliable
account of the origin and history of the first campaign, comp. Hilprecht in
Kolnische Zeitung, June 30, 1889, Sunday edition, second paper, and Harper
in "The Biblical World," vol. i, pp. 57-62.