s, was still more unbearable, and drove whole clouds of hot sand
into the face. We frequently passed half-ruined canals during the
day.

The chans upon this road are among the best and the most secure that
I have ever met with. From the exterior, they resemble small
fortresses; a high gateway leads into a large court-yard, which is
surrounded on all sides by broad, handsome halls built with thick
brick walls. In the halls, there are niches arranged in rows; each
one being large enough to serve three or four persons as a resting-
place. Before the niches, but also under the halls, are the places
for the cattle. In the court-yard, a terrace is also built five
feet high for sleeping in the hot summer nights. There are likewise
a number of rings and posts for the cattle in the court, where they
can be in the open air during the night.

These chans are adapted for whole caravans, and will contain as many
as 500 travellers, together with animals and baggage; they are
erected by the government, but more frequently by wealthy people,
who hope by such means to procure a place in heaven. Ten or twelve
soldiers are appointed to each chan as a guard. The gates are
closed in the evening. Travellers do not pay anything for staying
at these places.

Some Arabian families generally live outside the chans, or even in
them, and they supply the place of host, and furnish travellers with
camel's milk, bread, coffee, and sometimes, also, with camel's or
goat's flesh. I found the camel's milk rather disagreeable, but the
flesh is so good that I thought it had been cow-beef, and was
greatly surprised when my guide told me that it was not.

When travellers are furnished with a pasha's firman (letter of
recommendation), they can procure one or more mounted soldiers (all
the soldiers at the chans have horses) to accompany them through
dangerous places, and at times of disturbances. I had such a
firman, and made use of it at night.

In the afternoon we approached the town of Hilla, which now occupies
a part of the space where Babylon formerly stood. Beautiful woods
of date-trees indicated from afar the inhabited country, but
intercepted our view of the town.

Four miles from Hilla we turned off the road to the right, and
shortly found ourselves between enormous mounds of fallen walls and
heaps of bricks. The Arabs call these ruins Mujellibe. The largest
of these mounds of bricks and rubbish is 2,110 feet in
circumference, a