Mar Shimoon and many of his clergy and laity had sought refage in that city, he had abundant opportunity of acquiring from the best sources ample information respecting the civil and ecclesiastical government which had hitherto existed among the Nestorians. To the Patriarch and especially to his worthy and learned Archdeacon Kash'Auraha, who with his family were inmates of the author's house up to the date of his departure from Mosul, he is indebted for the statistics of the churches, clergy, and laity, belonging to his community. The correspondence which he afterwards kept up with Mar Shimoon, and his own researches during a second visit to the Nestorians in 1850, have enabled him to continue their history up to the present time, and to give a succinct narrative of the downfall of the confederate Coordish chiefs their enemies, and of the final establishment of the Ottoman rule over the mountain tribes of Central Coordistan.
The Syrian Monophysites, or Jacobites, will frequently come under notice in the ensuing pages, and a full account will be given of their present condition as a Christian sect; for although it formed no part of the author's instructions to make any researches among this people, yet he was thrown into circumstances where duty called him to assist in a struggle which is not yet ended between them and the dissenters from their body who have joined the communion of the Church of Rome. In so doing he was necessarily brought into friendly relations with their Patriarch and Bishops, and during his residence at Mosul, and when visiting the principal towns and villages inhabited by this people, he found many opportunities of labouring for their welfare; and although truth forbids that he should give a very favourable account of the state of religion and ecclesiastical discipline among them, yet he will ever cherish a pleasing recollection of the hospitality and kindness with which he was received, when they knew him to be a priest of the Church of England.
The efforts of Latin missionaries are frequently noticed in these volumes, the plans upon which their operations are based shown, and the chief causes of their success, and its results, considered. The history of the two modern communities, the Papal Syrian and Chaldean, is also given, together with the part which French political agents have acted, and are still acting, to
