On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (4)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
REVIEW.
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Art . I—Travels in Mesopotamia , including a Journey from Aleppo , across the Euphrates to Orfah , ( the Ur of the Chaldees , ) through the Plains of the Turcomans to Diarbekr in Asia Minor ; from thence to Mardin on the borders of the Great Desert , and by the Tigris to Mousul and Bagdad ; with Researches on the Ririns of Babylon , Nineveh , Arbela , Ctesiphon and Seleucia . By J . S . Buckingham , London . 4 to . 1827 * The title of this book is pompous enough , but perhaps ought more properly to be referred to the notorious quackery of the publisher than to the
judgment of the author . Be this , however , as it may , the paucity of travellers who have made the countries here visited the scene of their labours , renders any book on the subject interesting , and we are far from considering Mr . Buckingham unqualified in some respects to judge of what he sees , to prosecute his investigations diligently , and to communicate the results of those observations which would occur to a man of good sense , though , perhaps , not of very profound learning . In fact , the volume before us is one which we have read with great interest , and if it were somewhat
shorter and less accordant with the present bookselling craft of making every tiling five times as expensive as it ought to be , we should have pleasure in giving a recommendation to our readers , which we fear it is now charity to spare , to judge for themselves by placing the book on their own shelves . Mr . Buckingham ' s predecessors in Mesopotamia have been very few . The principal are thus enumerated by himself : " The Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela , an enterprising Jew , as early as the year
11 / 0 of the Christian era , visited many countries of the East , and wrote his observations in the Hebrew tongue , from which they have been subsequently translated into two of the languages of Europe ; Dr . Leonhardt Rauwolff , a German , who went by the Euphrates from Bir to Babylon , and returned from Bagdad to Aleppo by land about the year 1520 ; Pietro Delia Valle , an Italian ,
who was in that country about 1620 ; Otter , a Frenchman , who travelled in 1730 , and the celebrated Danish Engineer Niebuhr , about thirty years later ; since that period , now nearly a century ago , there has been no traveller of eminence with whose works I am acquainted , who has had any opportunity of examining the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris , winch strictly comprises the region of Mesopotamia . "
Mr . Buckingham travelled in dress and outward conformities as an Arab , under the protection of Hadjie Abd-el-Rakhman , a merchant of Mousul , re-r turning from a pilgrimage to Mecca . The Hadjie was a worthy man , and though , on account of his pilgrimage , entitled to and professing a character of peculiar sanctity , he was not on that account , as is usually the case among Mahometan ( perpaps also among some other ) professors , a fitter subject for
suspicion than confidence . The Arab proverb says , " If thy neighbour has been once to Mecca , suspect him ; if twice , carefully avoid him ; if thrice , make haste to remove from the neighbourhood of his dwelling . " They crossed the Euphrates at Beer , of which , as indeed of most of the other striking positions during the journey , there is a beautiful woodcut view , designed as a vignette , the best of all modes , we think , of illustrating a work of this sort . From thence the journey leads to Orfah , which all tradition and authority assign as the ancient city of" Ur of the Chaldees . " In every point of view , we
Untitled Article
( 427 )
Review.
REVIEW .
Untitled Article
2 f 2
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 427, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/35/
-