less and less, and the desert spread itself
before me, deadening all pleasure and animation. Here and there
grew some low herbage scarcely sufficient for the frugal camel; even
this ceases a few miles before coming to Assad, and from thence to
Hilla the desert appeared uninterruptedly in its sad and uniform
nakedness.

We passed the place where the town of Borossippa formerly stood, and
where it is said that a pillar of Nourhwan's palace is yet to be
seen; but I could not discover it anywhere, although the whole
desert lay open before me and a bright sunset afforded abundance of
light. I therefore contented myself with the place, and did not, on
that account, remember with less enthusiasm the great Alexander,
here at the last scene of his actions, when he was warned not to
enter Babylon again. Instead of the pillar, I saw the ruins of one
large and several smaller canals. The large one formerly united the
Euphrates with the Tigris, and the whole served for irrigating the
land.

31st May. I had never seen such numerous herds of camels as I did
today; there might possibly have been more than 7,000 or 8,000. As
most of them were unloaded and carried only a few tents, or women
and children, it was probably the wandering of a tribe in search of
a more fruitful dwelling-place. Among this enormous number, I saw
only a few camels that were completely white. These are very highly
prized by the Arabians; indeed, almost honoured as superior beings.
When I first saw the immense herd of these long-legged animals
appearing in the distant horizon, they looked like groups of small
trees; and I felt agreeably surprised to meet with vegetation in
this endless wilderness. But the wood, like that in Shakspere's
Macbeth, shortly advanced towards us, and the stems changed into
legs and the crowns into bodies.

I also observed a species of bird today to which I was a complete
stranger. It resembled, in colour and size, the small green
papagien, called paroquets, except that its beak was rather less
crooked and thick. It lives, like the earth-mouse, in small holes
in the ground. I saw flocks of them at two of the most barren
places in the desert, where there was no trace of a blade of grass
to be discovered, far and wide.

Towards 10 o'clock in the morning, we halted for two hours only at
Chan Nasri, as I was resolved to reach Hilla today. The heat rose
above 134 degrees Fah.; but a hot wind, that continually accompanied
u