he was daily becoming more disposed to rely upon the English merchant fleet in the event of an open rupture with the Portuguese of Ormuz. He had always consistently opposed the concession of a monopoly to any one nation, and he now found himself sufficiently powerful to reject the demands of Spain. The discomfited Ambassador left in August 1619, and spent the winter at Ormuz in the hope of a favourable change in the aspect of affairs: and he finally reached Spain in 1622, after an adventurous voyage.
During his residence in the Persian capital, he made the acquaintance of Pietro della Valle. a Roman gentleman of considerable fortune, who had been travelling for some years in the East. In consequence of a disappointment in love he had sought relief in foreign adventure, and at the age of twentv-nine he embarked at Venice for Constantinople. After visiting Egypt and the Holy Land, he crossed the desert to Bagdad. At that time Bagdad was commonly supposed to be built on the site of the ancient city of Babylon. But Della Valle had no difficulty in pointing out that this was evidently an error, for we know that the one city was built on the Tigris, while the other stood on the Euphrates. He made several excursions through Mesopotamia, and visited the mounds near Hillah, which he had no doubt covered the ruins of the true Babylon. He has left an account of the state in which he found them, which may still be read with interest; and he picked up some of the bricks, both baked and unbaked, of which they are composed.[1] These he subsequently brought back with him to Rome, where they were included in his private collection of antiquities. They were perhaps the first specimens that ever reached Europe, and a few of them may still be seen in the
- ↑ Viaggi di Pietro della Valle (Brighton, 1843), i. 382.
