or iron, according to their abilities, in one of their nostrils, and
about their legs they have hoops of gold, silver, or iron. All of them,
men, women, and children, are excellent swimmers, and they often brought
off in this manner vessels with milk on their heads to our barks. They
are very thievish, as I proved to my cost, for they stole a casket
belonging to me, containing things of good value, from under my man's
head as he lay asleep.

At Bir the Euphrates is about as broad as the Thames at Lambeth, in some
places broader, and in others narrower, and it runs very swiftly, almost
as fast as the Trent. It has various kinds of fish, all having scales,
some like our barbels, as large as salmon. We landed at Feluchia on the
28th of June, and had to remain there seven days for want of camels to
carry our goods to Babylon, [Bagdat,] the heat at that season being so
violent that the people were averse from hiring their camels to travel.
Feluchia is a village of some hundred houses, and is the place appointed
for discharging such goods as come down the river, the inhabitants being
all Arabs. Not being able to procure camels, we had to unlade our goods,
and hired an hundred asses to carry our English merchandize to New
Babylon, or Bagdat, across a short desert, which took us eighteen hours
of travelling, mostly in the night and morning, to avoid the great heat
of the day.

In this short desert, between the Euphrates and Tigris, formerly stood
the great and mighty city of ancient Babylon, many of the old ruins of
which are easily to be seen by day-light, as I, John Eldred, have often
beheld at my good leisure, having made three several journeys between
Aleppo and New Babylon. Here also are still to be seen the ruins of the
ancient Tower of Babel, which, being upon plain ground, seems very large
from afar; but the nearer you come towards it, it seems to grow less and