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The intricacy of this question, and the disputes of the learned, may be seen at large by consulting the notes of Freinshemius on Q. Curtius; and the ancient authorities, as well as the modern, are much perplexed, from the little knowledge of the interior obtained by both. Ptolemy had learned nothing of a Kierkè-Pliny has confounded the Pasitígris with the Tigris, or rather with the Shat' al Arab-Salmasius bas mistaken the same river for the A'rosisCellarius could not discover the Mosêus, which is the Khore Moosa, the issue of the Karoon. The first real dawn of light is the march of Timour, in Chereffeddin; but from that I could discover only the order of the rivers, not the line of their course-to Mr. M'Donald I am indebted for the first genuine information, and I acknowledge the obligation with gratitude. If I controvert his system, I do it with diffidence in my own conceptions, and whenever I see reason to alter my opinion, I shall embrace conviction as readily as I have labored in the investigation of truth.

A second argument, Mr. M'Donald derives from the extent and nature of the ruins at Sus; they stretch, he says, over a space of twelve miles, in the form of mounds and broken ground, like the ruins of Babylon, and consist of bricks and tiles, but no stone. Upon this I should observe, that the extent does not seem so singular as the materials, for when Susiana was a favored province, and the treasures of the empire laid up at Susa-when the sovereign visited it annually-when commerce and agriculture were protected, and communications opened by natural and artificial water-conveyance-it is not extraordinary that many extensive cities should grow up, under a fostering government, as we learn from History they did.

But the materials, of which the ruins remain, do so far correspond with a passage of Strabo, (p. 1032. Oxford edition,) adduced by Mr. M'Donald, (p. 104.) that if I could reconcile my conceptions to the locality, I should have little to invalidate his conclusion. Strabo certainly does say, that the city was built of brick; and it is well known that Shuster was, and is, built with stone. To this, I have only another inconsistency to object in favor of Shuster, which is, that it stands on an eminence, as Susa ought to do, and that Sus is on a plain. But a stronger objection is, that Strabo's is only hearsay evidence, xatáñeg eigýnaoi TIVES. This, however, I would not insist upon, if my first argument for the locality did not appear to me as a demonstration. The extent, however, of Sus is of little importance, as Mr. M'Donald allows

After the junction of the Euphrates with the Tigris, the united stream is called the Shat-al-Arab, till it issues into the Gulph of Persia.

2 An hundred years ago the passage to Basra and to Shuster was made by this Khore. Khore means a division of the Delta, formed by a stream.

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that Shuster was a city of vast extent, and no trifling magnificence; (p. 98) if this can be said of it now, what may we not attribute to it, when it was formerly one of the capitals of the Empire?

It does not appear, by a reference to Mr. M'Donald's disquisition, that he anywhere notices the work of Chereffeddin; it is to be regretted, that this author never attracted his attention, because the detail of Timour's march, which he has given, is in perfect correspondence with that of Antigonus in Diodôrus; and the authority of Chereffeddin is unquestionable. Adulation and amplification, in respect to his hero, he may justly be charged with; but his journal of the progress of the army is taken from the Archives of Samarcand; and the registers preserved there, it is well known, were drawn up from the dispatches regularly transmitted by the secretaries, who attended the army for this purpose, and they seem intitled to the same credit as an English Gazette.

From this account it appears, that Timour was at Dez-phoul on the Ab-zal on the 16th of March, 1403,2 and that he reached the Tchar Danke on the 18th.-Tchar Dankè expresses the four streams, or cuts, derived from the Eulêus, which encircle Shuster on the west; after crossing which, he entered the city, and remained there till the 19th of the following month; on that day he passed the Dou-dankè, or two cuts, which encircle Shuster on the East; on the 22d he reached the Koorookhan-Kende, and arrived at Ram Hormoz on the 23rd. Now, as Mr. M'Donald agrees with me, that the river of Ram Hormoz is the Pasitigris of the ancients, he must allow that the Dou-danke is the representative of Eulêus, the Koorookhan-Kende of the Koprátas, as well as that the Jerahi, or river at Ram Hormoz, is the Pasitígris. These three rivers

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On the authority of these Archives, see the report of Arabsia, who, although the professed enemy of Timour, bears this noble testimony to his love of truth-Nec [Timour] ex iis quicquam detrahebat aut exaggerabat, atque in eo hanc intendebat utilitatem, ut qui res ipsius ignorarent, eas quasi præsentes haberent. (Arabsia, tom. iii. pp. 783 et 857. Ed. Manger.) The same regard to veracity may be collected from Timour's own Institutes, and yet he was the greatest author of oppression, rapine, and slaughter, that the world ever saw, except Zingis Khawn and one more.

2 There is a confusion of ten years in the Chronology of Chereffeddin. 3 So far representative as derived from the main stream.

4 There are, I must confess, some difficulties in the different accounts of Mr. M'Donald, Chereffeddin, and his commentator Petis de la Croix, which I am not yet able to reconcile. According to Chereffeddin, Timour, after passing the river of Ram Harmoz, crossed two others, the Fei and the Ab Argoun. Of the Fei I cannot speak, it may be the small stream that goes to Dorack; but the Argoun, which I have considered as the Arrhegian or Tab, answers rather to the Jerahi of M'Donald, for he places Bebhegan between the Jerahi and the Tab; but Timour is said to have encamped at Bebhegan, after passing the Ab Argoun; if, therefore, this river is the

completely reconcile the march of Antígonus with that of Timour, and identify Shuster with Susa on the Eulêus.

On the advance of Alexander from Susa to Persis, the Koprátas is not mentioned, but the testimony of Strabo and Diodorus is amply sufficient to ascertam its existence and its place; it is acknowledged likewise by Mr. McDonald. On this point, therefore, there is no controversy; but upon the return of the Macedonian army, when Nearchus had first sailed up the Pasitígris to join his sovereign, and again fell down the stream to its junction with the Eulêus, in order to ascend that branch to Susa, the inspection of Mr. M'Donald's own map is, in my judgment, sufficient confirmation, that the Eulêus and the Karoon are the same.

The Karoon he describes as a noble river, in many parts three hundred yards wide, its depth even at this day, he adds, is sufficient to convey vessels of twenty-five tons up to the bridge below Shuster; and if so, fully answerable to the navigation of Greek gallies. The present bridge is a mound to raise the water, and a magnificent work attributed to Sapor Zulectaf; it is four miles from the city. The distance of the ancient bridge is not specified, it might be more or less, as it was not a permanent building, but a bridge of boats, called Zsuyua by Strabo, who brings up Nearchus to this point. The consistency of these particulars is sufficient evidence, that they are correct; and there is nothing which should induce us to proceed eight and twenty miles farther to find a bridge at Dez-phoul, where we are still at eight miles distance from Sus.

The passage of Alexander down the Eulêus, from Susa to the Gulph, and up by the Shat-al-Arab and Tigris to Opis, is in perfect correspondence with the preceding circumstances. This I

Arreghian, M'Donald places Bebbegan on the West, and Chereffeddin makes it East of the Tab. According to Petis de la Croix, I am correct in identifying the Ab Argoun with the Arreghian or Tab, for he writes, Ab Argoun, riviere qui sépare le Royaume de Kourcstan [ Susiana] de celui de Fars; in which he agrees with Ebn Hankal and Al Edrissi; but he then adds unfortunately, et se décharge dans Ab Zal, by which he means the Euleus: now the Tab does not join the Ab Zal or Eulêus, as the other rivers do. Afterwards he says of Bebhegan, Ville de Fars, placing that town in Persis which M'Donald fixes in Susiana. Notwithstanding these discordancies, I do not think the arrangement of the Euleus, the Koprátas, and the Pasitígris, can be disputed. See Chereffeddin, tom. ii. p. 135.

The work of Sapor Zulectaf, constructed for this purpose, is described by a variety of authors: whether it answers to the description at present is not so clear, for Mr. M'Donald informs us, that the main arch is 80 feet high, from which the natives frequently throw themselves into the water without injury. This seems to imply a passage for the stream under the arch, and a depth of water sufficient to answer all the purposes of inland navigation. Whether the Ab Zal is navigable to Dez-phoul he does not specify. The bridge at Dez-phoul is likewise attributed to Sapor Zulectaf. See Chereffeddin, tom. ii. p. 170. Paris edn. 1722.

have discussed at large in the sequel to the voyage of Nearchus, and there is no occasion to repeat it here. I regret that I have it not in my power to consult Otter at present, as I recollect that he has much oriental authority in respect to Susiana. I shall notice, therefore, only one circumstance more, which relates to the inland communication between Shuster and the Shat-al-Arab. There are, or were formerly, two canals opened for this purposeone on the North, called Mesercan, which passed in a westerly direction from that city to Ascar Mocran, and thence thirty miles to Ahwaz; from Ahwaz (the Haweeza of Mr. M'Donald)' it passes into the Shat-al-Arab, between Khorna and Basra, at a place called Suab or Soueib, and it is still navigable from Ahwaz, if I am not misinformed; but Al Edrissi notices it, in his age, as not admitting a passage up to Shuster, except at spring tides.

A second canal is the well-known Hafar cut, which passes from the mouth of the Karoon or Eulêus, at the head of the Delta, and enters the Shat-al-Arab about eight and twenty miles below Basra. This is still navigable; it is said to be a work of man by Nearchus and Arrian, and not questioned by Mr. M'Donald. Through this channel Alexander sent his disabled ships, while he proceeded down one of the Khores, or divisions of the Delta, to the Gulph.

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His own course, and the passage of the disabled ships, by the Hafar canal, are so precisely expressed by Arrian, that they cannot be mistaken-" He sailed down the Eulêus towards the sea, and when he was now near the issue of that river into the Gulph, he left there the bulk of his fleet, and all his disabled vessels, but he took with him such as sailed best, and proceeded with them till he reached the Gulph itself, and [then coasting the shore of the Delta] entered the mouth of the Tigris, [or Shat-al-Arab] but the vessels he had left behind, passing by the Eulêus into a canal,s which is cut from the Tigris into the Eulêus, entered the Tigris by that cut."

Mushirkan of Ebn Haukal.

2 I have no means of fixing the site of Ascar Mocran. From the great bridge mentioned there, I looked to Dez-phoul, but it is only a bridge of boats. Al Edrissi, p. 122.

3 Mr. M'Donald reckons 18 farsangs from Sug to Haweeza, and 17 from Haweeza to Basra: at 3 miles and three-quarters to a farsang,this gives nearly 67 miles for the first distance, and 63 to the second, or 130 to the whole.

4 Mr. M'Donald is high authority for every thing respecting the Karoon and Hafar, for he was encamped eight months on that canal; and I learn from him, that the waters of the Karoon pass by the Hafar into the Shat-alArab, whereas I had always previously understood, that the stream ran from the Shat into the Hafar.

5 Η τίτμηται ἐκ τοῦ Τίγρητος ἐς τὸν Εὐλαῖον. Lib. vii. p. 281. Ed. Gronov.

These are the very words of Arrian, and if, on the contrary, they can be applied to the progress of an army stationed at from thirty-six to forty-eight miles from Shuster, all probabilities must be rejected. It is true, that the same ambition which prompted Alexander to sail on the Indian ocean, induced him likewise to visit the Gulph of Persia; and he would not have preferred a shorter way into the Tigris, if it had been proposed; but a shorter passage for his shattered fleet, if he were at Sus, might have been found by the Kierkè, if navigable, and if that river communicated with the Mesercan, as it probably did; but without any such communication, the Mesercan was nearer Sus than the Hafar, and almost upon a line with it into the Shat-al-Arab; for a shattered fleet, the shortest way would be the best, and an inland navigation preferable to the great rivers; but that Alexander did not take advantage of this, is evident, for he went down the Eulêus nearly to its mouth-a circumstance which points exactly to the Hafar cut, and no other.

There is still one objection of Major Rennell and Mr. M'Donald's worthy of remark, and it is the last I shall notice. They report that the body of the prophet Daniel is buried at Sus, and not at Shuster :-to this it is easy to answer, that if he pro phesied at Shuster, it is no matter where he was buried; but the whole rests on a Mahomedan tradition, and the traditions of Moslems are as little to be depended on as the legends of our Christian saints. They have a similar tradition respecting the tomb of Ezekiel, in Mesopotamia, and a thousand tombs of their own Imaums, in different parts of the empire, many of whom had no more pretension to existence, than the eleven thousand virgins of the Roman Calendar. We may, however, not rest the merits of the case on this suspicion, but we have a right to state one tradition against another, and we can say, with truth, that there is no tradition more prevalent among oriental writers, than that Shuster is the oldest city in the world; the same tradition was current among the Greeks respecting Susa, so that if tradition is evidence, the chances in our favor are two to one: neither can it be proved, that Shuster is a modern city, built by Ardeshir Bebheghan, upon a Roman plan, given by the Emperor Valerian, when his prisoner; nor would similarity of constructions still existing prove it, for Greek or Roman architecture was frequently copied in the East.The Takti Kesra, at Al Modain, and the ruins of Palmyra, are

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Daniel (c. viii. v. 2.) prophesied at Shushan Gnal-Aub al Ulai, upon the river Ulai or Euleus.

2 Takti Kesra, the throne of Khosroes, still existing at Al-Modain, the ancient site of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. A view of it is given in Ives's

Travels.

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