from Westminster to the City.  At one time there were as many as twenty-three palaces within the royal precincts.  The Caliph, when visiting the Mosque in state, left the palace grounds, and proceeded over the main bridge, corresponding to Westminster Bridge, along a road which in Benjamin’s time led to the Basrah Gate quarter.  At the close of the ceremony in the Mosque, the Caliph returned, crossing the bridge of boats, and proceeded to his palace by a road corresponding to the Thames Embankment.  The members of his court and the nobles entered barges and escorted him alongside the river.

The Arab writers mention that certain palaces were used as state prisons, in which the Caliphs kept their nearer relations in honourable confinement.  They were duly attended by numerous servants, and amply supplied with every luxury, but forbidden under pain of death to go beyond the walls.  Lebrecht, p. 381, explains the circumstances under which the Caliph Moktafi imprisoned his brother and several of his kinsmen.  There were large hospitals in Bagdad:  the one to which Benjamin alludes is the Birmaristan of the Mustansiriyah, in Western Bagdad, which for three centuries was a great school of medical science.  Its ruins, close to the present bridge of boats, are still to be seen.  The reader must bear in mind that at the time when Benjamin visited Bagdad, the Seljuk Sultans had been defeated, and the Caliphs stood higher than ever in power.  They, however, took little interest in political affairs, which were left entirely in the hands of their viziers.]

[Footnote 127:  Asher and the other printed editions give the Jewish population at 1,000.  Pethachia makes the same estimate, which, however, is inconsistent with his statement, that the Head of the Academy had 2,000 disciples at one time, and that more than 500 surrounded him.  The British Museum and Casanatense MSS. solve the difficulty; they have the reading forty thousand.  It would be wearisome to specify in these notes all the places where a superior reading is presented by these MSS.; the student will, however, find that not a few anomalies which confronted Asher are now removed.]

     [Footnote 128:  The last or tenth Academy.]

     [Footnote 129:  This appellation is applied in the Talmud to
     scholars who uninterruptedly apply themselves to communal
     work.]

[Footnote 130:  The first line of Exilarchs, which ended with Hezekiah in the year 1040, traced their descent from David through Zerubbabel.  Hisdai’s pedigree was through Hillel, who sprang from a female branch of the Royal line (see Graetz, vol.  VI, note 10).  Pethachia writes (p. 17) that a year before his arrival at Bagdad Daniel died.  A nephew, David, became Exilarch jointly with R. Samuel, the Head of the great Academy, whose authority over all the communities in Asia became paramount.  Samuel had an only daughter, who was learned in the