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Untitled Article
should judge this city to be an exceedingly interesting and delightful spot . The beautiful lake on which it stands is filled with an incredible number of fine carp , which are considered as the gift and under the protection of the patriarch Abraham , the tutelar guardian of the city . They are forbidden to
be caught or molested , though Mr . Buckingham partook of them at a supper in the convent of the patriarch of the Syrian Church there . Here , as in other parts of his journey , he found churches of Syrian and Armenian Christians tolerated , as well as the Jews , by the government at the expense of a heavy taxation for their heresies , and bearing deadly hatred not only towards the Heathen but towards each other .
" The remainder of the evening [ on which Mr . Buckingham visited the patriarch was , he observes ] passed in theological disputes , as bitter as they could well be , though between members of the same church , and on points held to be unimportant—merely appertaining to faith and doctrine , uniformity in which is considered far less essential than in ceremonial rites ; for all were considered by their party to be orthodox Christians who made the cross and took the Sacrament in the same manner as themselves , however much they might differ from them in other respects . "
Orfah , our readers are probably aware , was the Edessa of the Greeks , and under that name became the scene of the bold attempts of the crusaders , who , in 1097 , founded there the first principality of the Franks , under the counts of Edessa ; from whom it was conquered by Zenghi about 1142 , only thirty years after which it was visited by Benjamin of Tudela , and subsequently by De Haiton , Tavernier and Pococke . Haran , the ancient residence of Abraham and Laban , is pointed out at a distance of eight hours '
journey . Here and throughout the Journey , the leading incidents of the Pentateuchal history live in local traditions , and the habits of life bear perpetual and most striking illustrations of the manners recorded in the sacred history . In the same way the beautiful account by Xenophon , of the retreat of the ten thousand , is verified in its descriptions at every step . The habits of the people in these regions , under all the various changes of their civil and religious relations , are as immutable as their deserts , their rivers , and
their mountains . Mr . Buckingham has had the opportunity of redeeming the character of Benjamin of Tudela from the reproach under which he was always laid , of gratifying his national vanity by exaggerating the numbers of his scattered countrymen resident in these cities of the East . Under all the peculiarities of their situation a considerable decrease might naturally be expected , but the accordance with the Jew ' s account of the numbers observed in the hasty progress of the Christian traveller , gives every reason to believe that the testimony of the former was by no means exaggerated .
From Orfah Mr . Buckingham had a circuitous journey by Mardin and Diarbekr , and thence to the Tigris at Mousul , by Dara , Nisibis , and the plain of Sinjar , a district in the possession of the Yezeedis , a semi-chrislian sect , who are reported to be reverers of Satan , possibly from some Manichsean tendencies , which time and ignorance have made more gross . The Turkish government is every where insufficient to repress the swarms of Wahabee
reformers and brigands who render all travelling dangerous , and appear to have possession of all the open country from Arabia to Persia . The existence and continual progress of these ascetic Barbarian Puritans are most singular . A leader only seems to be wanted to lead on the fanatic inhabitants of the desert to rival the conquests of the first prophet and his immediate successors .
Untitled Article
428 Review . —Buckingham's Trttveh in Mesopotamia .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 428, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/36/
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