We saw no human habitation until long after nightfall, when we reached the small Arab hamlet of Bashayi. It was surrounded, for defence, by a low mud wall, and some time was spent in a parley and explanation before the timid inhabitants would open their gates to so large a company of strangers. I could hardly remain in my saddle until their fears were set at rest, and we were admitted within the inclosure. At length I tottered into a hovel, thick with smoke, and sank down exhausted, after a ride of fourteen hours and a fortnight’s complete abstinence from food.
My poor Jebour workmen being on foot had been unable to keep up with the caravan during our forced march. They did not reach the village until daybreak, and then in a very sorry plight, for they were stript to the skin. They had approached, in search of water, the tents of some Arabs, and falling in with a plundering party had been robbed of every thing, and left naked in the Desert.
Next morning I had scarcely strength to mount my horse. Hormuzd turned off to Hillah to put a stop to the excavations at Babylon. With the caravan I made another forced march in the beaten track to Baghdad, and reached the khan of Iskanderiyah.
We were now within a few hours of the end of our journey, and leaving the servants and baggage to follow at leisure, I quitted the khan with the Bairakdar before dawn to canter into Baghdad. As the sun rose from the sea-like plain, the great ruin of Ctesiphon appeared above the eastern horizon.
This ruin, with a few mounds and heaps of rubbish scattered around it, is all that now remains of the capital of the Parthian empire. On the opposite bank of the Tigris long lines of earthen ramparts, forming a quadrangle and inclosing the usual signs of former habitations, mark the site of the city built by Seleucus after the last fall of Babylon.
The victorious Arabs, under Saad, the general of the Caliph Omar, pillaged Ctesiphon after they had overthrown the Persian armies in the decisive battle of Cadesia, in the sixteenth year of the Hegira. They found in the palace the throne, the crown, and the standard of the Persian kings, together with a carpet which covered the floor of the great hall, and was of such extraordinary beauty and value that it excited the wonder of the conquerors, and was considered amongst the most precious spoil taken from their enemies.
Ctesiphon and Seleucia received from the Arabs the name of Al Madain, or the twin cities. When Baghdad was founded on the Tigris, a few miles above them, the Caliph Al Mansour wished to pull down the palace of Chosroes for materials to build his own capital. His vizir, who had recently turned from the Magian religion, endeavored to dissuade him. The caliph upbraided him for being but an insincere convert to Islam, and for sympathising with those who still professed his former faith, and whose monuments he therefore wished to preserve. The attempt to destroy the vast edifice was fruitless; but when it was about to be abandoned, the vizir urged his master to persevere, exclaiming, “that if he now ceased to pull down the palace, history would say that Al Mansour with all his power was unable to overthrow that which another prince had built.”
I did not visit Ctesiphon on this occasion; the river separated me from the ruins, and I only mention them in this place to describe a remarkable effect of mirage which I witnessed as I rode towards Baghdad. As the quivering sun rose in unclouded splendor, the palace was transformed into a vast arcade of enormous arches resting upon columns and masses of masonry. Gradually this arcade was, as it were, compressed like the slides of a telescope, but the building gained in height what it lost in length, and one arch slowly appeared above the other, until the ruin assumed the shape of a tower reaching to the sky, and pierced from the base to the summit by innumerable arches. In a few minutes this strange edifice began to melt away into the air, and I saw a magnified, though perfect image of the palace; but upon it was its exact counterpart upside down. Other equally singular changes succeeded until the sun was high in the heavens, and the ruin at length disappeared in the distance. The small bushes of camel-thorn scattered over the Desert were during this time turned into forest trees, and a transparent lake imaged for a fleeting hour in its counterfeit waters the varying forms of the unsubstantial edifice. Although I have seen many extraordinary effects of mirage during my wanderings in the East, I scarcely remember to have witnessed one more striking or more beautiful than that near the ruins of Ctesiphon.
I had just strength left me to reach the gates of Baghdad. Once in the city, under the friendly care of Dr. Hyslop, I soon recovered my health, and was ready to start on fresh adventures.