KERBELA, or Meshhed-Hosein, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet of Baghdad, is situated in a fertile and well-cultivated district about 60 miles south-south-west of Baghdad, and about 20 miles west of the Euphrates, from which a very ancient canal extends to it. It is surrounded by a dilapidated brick wall 24 feet high, and contains a fine market-place, with one broad street leading to the governor’s residence. The other streets are narrow and dirty. Of the five mosques in the town the largest is the mosque of Hosein with a large gilded dome and minarets; it contains the tomb of Hosein, son of the caliph ‘Aly (see Arabia, vol. ii. p. 258), whose sanctity makes Kerbela in the eyes of Shiites less sacred only than Mecca. Some 200,000 pilgrims from all parts of Islam journey annually to Kerbela, many of them carrying the bones of their relatives to be buried in its sacred soil. The moullahs, who fix the burial fees, derive an enormous revenue from the faithful. At one time Kerbela was an inviolable sanctuary for criminals, but it has ceased to be so since 1843, when the inhabitants revolted against the Turks, and were reduced with great slaughter. The enormous influx of pilgrims naturally creates brisk trade in Kerbela and the towns on the route thither,—a fact which makes the Turkish Government anxious not to divert the stream elsewhere, as some years ago was partially done by sanitary and other regulations. The population, necessarily fluctuating, was estimated in 1878 at 60,000; Mr Clements Markham, writing in 1874, put it at 20,000.