Note (5) — 34.—Of the tower of Babilony that is of such great height.

(5.) “In this kingdom the people are not warlike.”—It is not surprising that Schiltberger should have been struck by the pacific disposition of the people of Baghdad, a city that owed its opulence to industry and commerce. Baghdad was reconstructed by Ahmen ben Oweis after its destruction by Timour (Weil, Gesch. der Chal., v, 98). The inhabitants were Arabs and Persians, as they are now. That a large park and menagerie should have existed is in the highest degree probable, for we read in Zosimus (Hist. Rom., iii, 23), that the troops of the emperor Julian discovered a royal garden in Mesopotamia, in which wild beasts were kept: εἰς περίβολον ὃν Βασιλέως θήραν ἐκάλον. The Greeks of Heraclius’s expedition, A.D. 627, found a large park close to the residence of Chosroes (Ritter, Die Erdkunde etc., ix, 503), in which were many ostriches, wild boar, peacocks, pheasants, lions, tigers, etc. Another instance was the residence, near Baghdad, of the caliph El-Harim, which stood within grounds wherein were wild beasts of every description (ibid., x, 258).—Bruun.