Note 174 — Chapter VII · MÔṢUL TO ZÂKHÔ April 28—May 10

Zâkhô must be the place known to the Arab geographers as Ḥasanîyeh (I see that Hartmann comes to the same conclusion: Bohtân, Mitt. der Vorderas. Gesell., 1896, II. p. 39), but their information is, as usual, exceedingly meagre and the castle is mentioned by none. Muḳaddasî, in the tenth century, says that it is a day’s journey from Ma’lathâyâ (Malthai) to Ḥasanîyeh (ed. de Goeje, p. 149), and notes the bridge over the Khâbûr above the town (p. 139). Yâḳût, in the thirteenth century, observes that it is two days from Môṣul on the road to Jezîret ibn ’Umar. Ainsworth conjectures it to be the spot described by Xenophon as “a kind of palace with several villages round it,” which was reached by the Greeks in five days’ march from Mespila-Nineveh, but it must be admitted that Xenophon’s description is not exactly suited to Zâkhô. Ritter thinks that a memory of the people called by Strabo Saccopodes may be retained in the name Zâkhô (Vol. IX. p. 705). With regard to the name Ḥasanîyeh it is perhaps preserved in Ḥasanah, a small village on the opposite side of the Khâbûr valley.