In the year 1888 I was engaged at Mosul, a town on the right or west bank of the river Tigris, opposite to the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh, in carrying on excavations for the Trustees of the British Museum in the neighbouring mound of Kuyunjik, and in the performance of my official duties I was brought into contact with His Excellency the Wall, or Governor, of Mosul, and with many of the principal ecclesiastical authorities of the town and of the villages round about. Whenever the opportunity offered I made enquiries about manuscript copies of ancient Syriac books in which I was interested, and I visited various churches and monasteries where I heard that old Syriac MSS. were to be found. In Mosul itself some private in- dividuals courteously showed me such manuscripts as they had, but the suggestion that I should purchase the same met with firm refusals on the part of their true owners; the further proposition on my part to have copies made at my expense was received with a series of politely given refusals, which all who have dealt with the Mesopotamian Oriental will readily under- stand. I paid a visit to the Jacobite Patriarch in his beautiful house, and asked for help, but failed to re- ceive any. The venerable Patriarch gave me an account of his journey to England, and described at
