A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
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I Availed Myself Of The Few Days Of My Stay To Look About The Town,
And See What Still Remains Of Its Ancient Celebrity.
Bassora, or Bassra, was founded in the reign of the Caliph Omar, in
the year 656.
Sometimes under Turkish, sometimes under Persian
dominion, it was at last permanently placed under the latter power.
There are no vestiges of antiquity remaining; neither ruins of
handsome mosques nor caravansaries. The fortified walls are much
dilapidated, the houses of the town small and unattractive, the
streets crooked, narrow, and dirty. The bazaar, which consists of
covered galleries with wretched stalls, cannot show a single good
stock of goods, although Bassora is the principal emporium and
trading port for the Indian wares imported into Turkey. There are
several coffee-stalls and a second-rate caravansary in the bazaar.
A large open space, not very remarkable for cleanliness, serves in
the day as a corn-market; and in the evening several hundred guests
are to be seen seated before a large coffee-stall, drinking coffee
and smoking nargillies.
Modern ruins are abundant in Bassora, the result of the plague which
in the year 1832 carried off nearly one half of the inhabitants.
Numbers of streets and squares consist only of forsaken and decaying
houses. Where, a few years back, men were busily engaged in trade,
there is now nothing left but ruins and rubbish and weeds, and palms
grow between crumbling walls.
The position of Bassora is said to be particularly unhealthy:
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