Note 41 — Chapter XIII

Rassam, who has been digging at Babylon, informs me that these inscriptions are in the ancient Phœnician character. It would seem that the Phœnicians, who were a nation of shopkeepers, were in the habit of sending out commercial travellers with samples of goods all over Asia; and wherever they stopped on the road, if there was a convenient bit of soft rock, they scratched their names on it, and drew pictures of animals. The explanation may be the true one, but how does it come that these tradesmen should choose purely desert subjects for their artistic efforts—camels, ostriches, ibexes, and horsemen with lances. I should have fancied rather that these were the work of Arabs, or of whoever represented the Arabs, in days gone by, anyhow of people living in the country. But I am no archæologist.