[125] There is a copy of Rauwolf's work in the British Museum, enriched by a multitude of MS. notes by Gronovius, to whom it would seem the copy once belonged.
[126] By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they, that wasted us, required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?—Psalm cxxxvii.
[127] The words of Beauchamp are:—"I employed two men for three hours in clearing a stone, which they supposed to be an idol. The part, which I got a sight of, appeared to be nothing but a shapeless mass: it was evident, however, that it was not a simple block, as it bore the marks of a chisel, and there were pretty deep holes in it." Sir Robert Ker Porter says, it is a common idea with the Turks, that the real object with Europeans, in visiting the banks of the Euphrates, is not to explore antiquities, as we pretend, but to make a laborious pilgrimage to these almost shapeless relics of a race of unbelievers more ancient than ourselves; and to perform certain mysterious religious rites before them, which excite no small curiosity amongst the Faithful to inquire into.
[128] It is probable, that many fragments of antiquity, especially of the larger kind, are lost in this manner. The inhabitants call all stones, with inscriptions or figures on them, idols.—Rich.
[129] "The mass on which the Kasr stands," says Sir R. K. Porter, "is above the general level full seven hundred feet. Its length is nearly four hundred yards; its breadth six hundred; but its form is now very irregular. Much of the débris, which this interesting spot presented to the Abbé Beauchamp and Mr. Rich in 1811, have now totally disappeared; the aspect of the summit and sides suffering constant changes from the everlasting digging in its apparently inexhaustible quarries for brick of the strongest and finest material.
[130] For the story of Haroot and Maroot, see D'Herbelot and Richards' Persian Dictionary; also Kinneir's Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire.
[131] Buckingham.