The difficulties and delay in crossing the Tigris, now swollen by the melting of the mountain snows, induced me to pitch my tents on the mound of Kouyunjik, and to reside there with all my party, instead of daily passing to and fro in the rude ferry-boats to the ruins. The small European community at Mosul was increased in June by the arrival of a large party of travellers. Two English gentlemen and their wives who passed through on their way to Baghdad: the Hon. Mr. Walpole, who has since published an account of his adventures in the East; the Rev. Mr. Malan, to whom I am indebted for many beautiful sketches, and of whose kindness in affording me these valuable illustrations I again seize the opportunity of making a grateful acknowledgment; the Rev. Mr. Bowen, an English clergyman, on a tour of inspection to the Eastern churches, with whom I spent many agreeable and profitable hours amongst the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, and his companion, Mr. Sandresky, were our visitors, and were most of them my guests.

Our tents were pitched at the northern corner of Kouyunjik, near some earthen banks and embrasures, which tradition points out as the batteries of Nadir Shah, when he directed his guns against the town of Mosul. The spring was now fast passing away; the heat became daily greater; the corn was cut, and the plains and hills put on their summer clothing of dull parched yellow.