Excerpt: ...it, spitting it back again into the pan. Then she took a dirty rag, strained through it the delicate mixture, and poured it over the meat in the larger vessel. Madame Pfeiffer had firmly resolved not to touch the dish, but when it was ready her longing for food was so great, and so savoury was the smell, that she reflected that what she had already eaten was probably not a whit cleaner; in short, for once she proved false to her resolution. Eating, she was filled; and the viands gave her increased strength. On the 28th of June the caravan reached Erbil, the ancient Arbela, where Alexander the Great defeated Darius and his Persian host. Next day they crossed a broad river, on rafts of inflated skins, fastened together with poles, and covered with reeds, canes, and plank. Rapidly traversing the shrubless, p. 113 herbless plains of Mesopotamia, they reached at length the town of Mosul, the point from which travellers proceed to visit the ruins of Nineveh. These have been so carefully explored and ably described by Layard and the late George Smith, that it is needless to quote Madame Ida Pfeiffer
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.