the passage occurring repeatedly in Scripture, e. g. 2 Kings xvii. 6:  “... and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”]

[Footnote 116:  All the MSS. except BM. have here:  “Thence it is two days to the city of Nisibis (Nasibin).  This is a great city with rivulets of water, and contains about 1,000 Jews.”]

[Footnote 117:  Josephus (Antiquities, I, 3) mentions that Noah’s Ark still existed in his day.  Rabbi Pethachia, who travelled through Armenia within twenty years after Benjamin, speaks of four mountain peaks, between which the Ark became fixed and from which it could not get free.  Arab writers tell us that Jabal Judi (Koran, ch. xi, ver. 46) with the Mosque of Noah on the summit, could be seen from Geziret.  See also Marco Polo, Bk.  I. ch. 3.]

[Footnote 118:  See Lebrecht’s Essay “On the State of the Caliphate at Bagdad.”  Sin-ed-din, otherwise known as Seif-ed-din, died 1149, some twenty years before Benjamin’s visit, and Graetz (vol.  VI, note 10) suggests that the appointment of Astronomer Royal must have been made by Nur-ed-din’s nephew.  None of the MSS. have this reading, nor is such a correction needed.  R. Joseph may have been appointed by Nur-ed-din’s brother, and would naturally retain the office during the reign of his successor.]

     [Footnote 119:  Irbil, or Arbela, is two days’ journey from
     Mosul.  See Saadyana, J.  Q.R., vol.  XIV, p. 503, and W.
     Bacher’s note, p. 741.]

[Footnote 120:  For a full account of Mosul and other places here referred to, see Mr. Guy Le Strange’s The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 1905, also Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains and Nineveh and Babylon.  Layard carefully examined Nebbi Junus, which is held in great veneration by the Mussulmans, and came to the conclusion that the tradition which places Jonah’s tomb on this spot is a mere fable (p. 596).  It will be seen that Benjamin speaks of the Shrine as a Synagogue.  At Alkush near Mosul the tomb of Nahum is pointed out, and the Arabs say that after Jonah had fulfilled his mission to the people of Nineveh they relapsed into idolatry.  Then Nahum denounced the city and was slain by the populace, who proclaimed him and Jonah to be false prophets, since the doom the latter foretold does not come to pass, See Schwarz, Das Heilige Land, 1852, p. 259, identifying Kefar Tanchum near Tiberias with Nahum’s burialplace]

[Footnote 121:  As to Jewish seats of learning in Babylon refer to Dr. Krauss’s Article “Babylonia” in the Jewish Encyclopaedia; see also Guy Le Strange, p. 74, who suggests that Pumbedita means “mouth of the Badat canal.”  Cf. J.  Q. R., XVII, p. 756.]

[Footnote 122:  Hadara goes under the name Alhathr or Hatra.  There must exist great doubt as to whether Benjamin had personally