sponding
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. Sa