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

DURING 19TJI CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 37
sador in Constantinople to Mr. Rich, then English Resident
at Baghdad. Buckingham decided at once to profit by the
opportunity, so unexpectedly offered, of travelling in comparative
safety through a country in which he had met with
so much lawlessness and interference.
Sacrificing, therefore,
his personal comfort to speed and safety, he completed his
journey in the company of the two Tartars. In consequence
of the new arrangement, however, he could spend
only two days at Mosul, and devote but a few morning
hours immediately before his departure to a hasty inspection
of the ruins of Nineveh, which for this reason contributed
nothing to a better understanding of the site
of this ancient
city. In the oppressive heat of a Mesopotamian summer,
and deserted on the road by one of his Tartars, he finally
arrived at Baghdad, where, in the congenial atmosphere of
Rich's hospitable house, he found the necessary encouragement
and assistance in executing his plan of paying a visit
to some of the principal mounds of ancient Babylonia.
Accompanied by Mr. Bellino, the well-informed secretary
to the Residency, he at first
of which he has left us a more critical,
examined the ruins of 'Aqarquf,
correct, and comprehensive
account than any of the preceding travellers, even
Niebuhr and Olivier not excluded. From the numerous
fragments of brick and pottery and other vestiges of former
buildings scattered around the shapeless mass of the detached
ruin he recognized with Olivier that near this socalled
" Tower of Nimrod " 1 there must have stood a city
to which a large canal (the 'Isa), uniting the two great rivers,
1
One of the designations commonly given to this ruin by the Arabs (comp.
above, p. 16, note 2, and Rich's "Memoirs," p. 8o). 'Aqarquf has no
satisfactory etymology in Arabic. Possibly it is only the badly mutilated old
Babylonian name of the city. Comp. Buckingham, ** Trav.," vol. ii., p. 226,
footnote, and Ker Porter, "Travels," vol. ii. , pp. 276, 279. A learned
Arab of Baghdad, whom Buckingham consulted (/. c, p. 239), did not hesitate
to explain it as " the place of him who rebelled against God." Two
other etymologies are quoted by Yaqut in his geographical dictionary.
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