_Of Feluchia and Babylon._ Feluchia is a village on the Euphrates, where they who come from Bir for Babylon disembark with their goods, and go thence by land to Babylon, a journey of a day and a half. Babylon is no great city, but is very populous and is greatly resorted to by strangers, being the great thoroughfare for Persia, Turkey and Arabia, and from this place there are frequent caravans to different countries. Babylon is abundantly supplied with provisions, which are brought down the river Tigris on certain rafts or _zattores_ called Vtrij, the river Tigris running past the walls of Babylon. The blown-up hides of which these rafts are composed, are bound fast together, on which boards are laid, and on these boards the commodities are loaded. When unladed at Babylon, the air is let out of the skins, which are then laid on the backs of camels and carried back to serve for another voyage. The city of Babylon is properly speaking in the kingdom of Persia, but is now under the dominion of the Turks. On the other side of the river towards Arabia, over against Babylon, there is a handsome town in which is an extensive Bazar for the merchants, with many lodging rooms, in which the greater part of the stranger merchants that go to Babylon expose their goods for sale. The passage across the river between Babylon and this town is by a long bridge of boats chained together with great chains: And when the river is swollen by the great rains, this bridge is opened in the middle, one half falling alongside of the walls of Babylon, and the other half along the opposite bank of the borough. So long as the bridge remains open, the people cross from side to side in small boats with much danger, by reason of their smallness, and that they are usually overladen, so that they are very liable to be overset by the swiftness of the current, or to be carried away and wrecked on the banks. In this manner-many people are lost and drowned, as I have often witnessed.