'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎48] (181/458)

48
COMMANDER F. JONES.
In the spring of this year I had projected a Surveying tour through
a portion of Babylonia and the lower Chaldea, provided a sufficiency
of rain water and pasture were available on these deserted portions of
Mesopotamia, which, bounded on the S. West by the Euphrates, on the
N. East by the Tigris, and on the S. East by the Shat-al-Hye-a consi
derable branch of the latter—while, in ancient times, admirably pro
tected to the N. West by artificial streams contained, in those remote
ages, not only a vast and highly civilized population, but boasted also
of the most magnificent cities of the world, as it then existed. These,
though not entirely unknown, have been visited by a few Englishmen
only, and from the difficulty of the country,* as well as the wild state of
the tribes, have obtained but a partial glance. At the instant of starting,
however, I was disappointed by a revolt taking place among the preda
tory families on the Hindiyeh marshes to the west of the Euphrates, and
as is usually the case— the disaffection extended to the tribes in their
immediate vicinity. A letter from an Agail Chief, employed with the
troops in the disturbed districts—despatched in haste—strongly recom
mended me to defer the visit until less disturbed times, and the depar
ture of troops and guns from the city corroborating the intelligence,
I was reluctantly compelled to abandon my design, and to leave this
interesting tract for future examination, when a quieter period would
enable me to fix—at more leisure, the positions of the various sites, as
well as obtain specimens of the many inscribed relics lately seen by Mr.
Loftus, the active and intelligent naturalist with the frontier Commis
sion under Colonel Williams. To this gentleman and to the pencil of his
associate Mr. Churchill, we are indebted for all that is positively known
respecting Werka,’)' and other entombed cities of an ancient age and
Destitute of water and pasture during three fourths of the year. The tribes too, in the
lower portion, adjoining the Hye, are under little control from being separated into many
subdivisions whose Chiefs, though nominally under the great Sheikhs of the Montafik and
a i Ct mde P endentl y of each other. The marshy nature of the tract adjoining the Hye
a ®® cur ® retreat when aggressions, of more than an ordinary nature, awaken the
Snro,q h ? ritieS fr0n J t! i ei I USual a P afch y> and in proportion to the security they possess,
Arab depredations are extended or curtailed. J J e
1 1 J been positely known with regard to Werka it has been, in name, identi-
fied some time since by Major Rawlmson 9 s the Ur of the Chaldees, and the Orchoeof the an-
cient geographers. European geographer’s, Dr Anville particularly-have Generally fixed
the locality of the Orchoeni further South than the position occupied by Werka, but the
evidence of Pliny (lib. VI. cap, 26*27) and Strabo (lib. "XVI. p. 739 ) will not a°Tee with
these conclusions. Ptolemy again places Orchoe according to Bryant in Lat. 32 oO 30 N. (see
Mythology of the ancients, page 524 Vol. II.) In the Periplus of Dr Vincent it is given from
naraflp ? * 1 n/'wl 0 ti y th ^ ^ being a de » ree nearly too much to the North of the
parallel of Werka. Ptolemy s latitude would however appear to refer to the ancient Culha
represented by the mounds of Ibrahim first discovered by Major Rawlinson in IS45 (com
mencing on the cuneiform Inscrip 1850 note 1 page 77; Wer’ka is the Ur of the Chaldees and
perhaps the Erich of Genesis x lo and the of the Septuagint would also seem