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

10 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
passe on the rampire in front : these walls were garnished
with a thousand and five hundreth towers, which gave exceeding
beauty to the rest, and a strength no lesse admirable
for the nature of those times." 1
Tavernier, who justly prides himself in having travelled
by land more than sixty thousand miles within forty years,
made no less than six different excursions into Asia. In
April, 1644, he spent over a week at Mosul, and most
naturally also visited the ruins of Nineveh, which were
pointed out to him on the left bank of the Tigris. " They
appear as a formless mass of ruined houses extending almost
a mile alongside the river. One recognizes there a large
number of vaults or holes which are all uninhabited," —
evidently the same place which, seventy-five years before
him, Rauwolff had found frequented by poor people, and
not unfittingly had compared to a large ant-hill. " Half
a mile from the Tigris is a small hill occupied by many
houses and a mosque, which is still in a fine state of preservation.
According to the accounts of the natives the prophet
Jonah lies buried here." 2
During the eighteenth century men of business, scholars,
and priests of different religious orders kept the old tradition
alive in the accounts of their travels. But in 1748
Jean Otter, a member of the French Academy, and afterwards
professor of Arabic, who had spent ten years in the
provinces of Turkey and Persia for the distinct purpose
of studying geographical and historical
questions, suddenly
introduced a strong element of doubt as to the value and
continuity of the local tradition around Mosul. 3 He dis-
1
"The Preacher's Travels," London, 1611, pp. 89, seq. Comp.,
also, Rogers, " History of Babylonia and Assyria," vol. i., pp. 94, seq.
-
Comp. Herrn Johann Baptisten Taverniers Vierzig-Jahrige Reise-
Beschreibung, translated by Menudier, Nuremberg, 1681, part 1, p. 74.
8
In his Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, Paris, 1748, vol. i., pp. 133,
seq. Comp., also, Buckingham, "Travels in Mesopotamia," London,
1827, vol. ii., p. 17.