Benjamin’s personal familiarity with Baghdad saved him from making Frutolf’s and Otto’s mistake of confusing the Abbasid capital with old Babylon. We gather from Benjamin’s _Itinerary_ that the latter is three days’ journey distant and that “the ruins of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar are still to be seen there, but people are afraid to enter them on account of serpents and scorpions” (Adler’s translation).[1354] Baghdad, Benjamin writes (our quotations are from Adler’s translation), “is on the River Tigris,” which “divides the metropolis in two parts.” The city “is twenty miles in circumference, situated in a land of palms, gardens, and plantations, the like of which is not to be found in the whole land of Shinar. People come thither with merchandise from all lands. Wise men live there, philosophers who know all manner of wisdom, and magicians expert in all manner of witchcraft.”[1355] Benjamin was particularly interested in the Caliph, of whose palace, park, family, and widespread authority he writes in no little detail and in highly commendatory terms,[1356] for it seems that the Caliphs were more tolerant toward the Jews than were most Christian monarchs of the age. Besides treating of the Caliph, Benjamin tells about the “Head of the Captivity,” another powerful ruler whose headquarters were Baghdad and in whom the Caliph had vested authority over all the Jewish communities throughout the eastern Moslem world. A descendant of David, King of Israel, he was a man of great dignity and rank, held high in the esteem of the Mohammedans. His power extended “over all the communities of Shinar, Persia, Khurasan, and Sheba, which is El-Yemen, and Diyar Kalach (Bekr) and the land of Aram Naharaim (Mesopotamia) and over the dwellers in the mountains of Ararat and the land of the Alans, which is a land surrounded by mountains and has no outlet except by the iron gates which Alexander made but which were afterwards broken. Here are the people called Alani. His authority extends also over the land of Siberia [Sikbia?] and the communities in the land of Togarmim[1357] unto the mountains of Asveh and the land of Gurgan, the inhabitants of which are called Gurganim who dwell by the river Gihon (Oxus?); and these are the Girgashites who follow the Christian religion. Further it extends to the gates of Samarkand, the land of Tibet, and the land of India. In respect of all these countries the Head of the Captivity gives the communities power to appoint Rabbis and Ministers who come unto him to be consecrated and to receive his authority. They bring him offerings and gifts from the ends of the earth.”[1358]