"Extending one thousand one hundred yards in length, and eight hundred in its greatest breadth, its figure nearly resembling that of a quadrant; its height is irregular; but the most elevated part may be about fifty or sixty feet above the level of the plain, and it has been dug into for the purpose of procuring bricks."

He distinguishes this mound, on which is erected a tomb, sacred to a son of Ali, named AMRAN, though he controverts the fact of Ali having had a son so called, by the name of AMRAN. He then proceeds:

"On the north is a valley of five hundred and fifty yards in length, the area of which is covered with tussocks of rank grass, and crossed by a line of ruins of very little elevation. To this succeeds the second grand heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a square, of seven hundred yards length and breadth, and its S. W. angle is connected with the N. W. angle of the mounds of Amran, by a ridge of considerable height, and nearly one hundred yards in breadth. This is the place where Beauchamp made his observations, and it is certainly the most interesting part of the ruins of Babylon; every vestige discoverable in it declares it to have been composed of buildings far superior to all the rest which have left traces in the eastern quarter: the bricks are of the finest description; and, notwithstanding this is the grand storehouse of them, and that the greatest supplies have been and are now constantly drawn from it, they appear still to be abundant. But the operation of extracting the bricks has caused great confusion, and contributed much to increase the difficulty of decyphering the original design of this mound, as in search of them the workmen pierce into it in every direction, hollowing out deep ravines and pits, and throwing up the rubbish in heaps on the surface. In some places they have bored into the solid mass, forming winding caverns and subterranean passages, which, from their being left without adequate support, frequently bury the workmen in the rubbish. In all these excavations, walls of burnt brick laid in lime mortar of a very good quality are seen; and in addition to the substances generally strewed on the surfaces of all these mounds, we here find fragments of alabaster vessels, fine earthen ware, marble, and great quantities of varnished tiles, the glazing aud colouring of which are surprisingly fresh. In a hollow near the southern part I found a sepulchral urn of earthen ware, which had been broken in digging, and near it lay some human bones which pulverized with the touch.

"To be more particular in my description of this mound, not more than two hundred yards from its northern extremity is a ravine, hollowed out by those who dig for bricks, in length near a hundred yards,' and thirty feet wide by forty or fifty deep. On one side of it a few yards of wall remain standing, the face of which is very clean and perfect, and it appears to have been the front of some building. The opposite side is so confused a mass of rubbish, that it should seem the ravine had been worked through a solid building. Under the foundations at the southern end an opening is made, which discovers a subterranean passage, floored and walled with large bricks laid in bitumen, and covered over with pieces of sand stone, a yard thick and several yards long, on which the whole pressure is so great as to have given a considerable degree of obliquity to the side walls of the passage. It is half full of brackish water (probably rain water impregnated with nitre, in filtering through the ruins, which are all very productive

of it) and the workmen say that some way on it is high enough for a horseman to pass upright: as much as I saw of it, it was near seven feet in height, and its course to the south. This is described by Beauchamp, who most unaccountably imagines it must have been part of the city wall. The superstructure over the passage is cemented with bitumen, other parts of the ravine with mortar, and the bricks have all writing on them. The northern end of the ravine appears to have been crossed by an extremely thick wall of yellowish brick, cemented with a brilliant white mortar, which has been broken through in hollowing it out: and a little to the north of it I discovered what Beauchamp saw imperfectly, and understood from the natives to be an idol. I was told the same thing, and that it was discovered by an old Arab in digging, but that, not knowing what to do with it, he covered it up again*. On sending for the old man, who pointed out the spot, I set a number of men to work, who, after a day's hard labour, laid open enough of the statue to show that it was a lion of colossal dimensions, standing on a pedestal, of a coarse kind of grey granite and of rude workmanship; in the mouth was a circular aperture, into which a man might introduce his fist.”—pp. 21–25.

The next considerable mass to that of Amran is the Kasr, or Palace, as it is called by the natives, and it is thus described:

"It is a very remarkable ruin, which, being uncovered and in part detached from the rubbish, is visible from a considerable distance, but so surprisingly fresh in its appearance, that it was only after a minute inspection I was satisfied of its being in reality a Babylonian remain. It consists of several walls and piers (which face the cardinal points) eight feet in thickness, in some places ornamented with niches, and in others strengthened by pilasters and buttresses, built of fine burnt brick, (still perfectly clean and sharp) laid in lime cement of such tenacity, that those whose business it is have given up working, on account of the extreme difficulty of extracting them whole. The tops of these walls are broken, and may have been much higher. On the outside they have in some places been cleared nearly to the foundations, but the internal spaces formed by them are yet filled with rubbish, in some parts almost to their summit. One part of the wall has been split into three parts, and overthrown as if by an earthquake; some detached walls of the same kind, standing at different distances, show what remains to have been only a small part of the original fabric; indeed it appears that the passage in the ravine, together with the wall which crosses its upper end, were connected with it. There are some hollows underneath, in which several persons have lost their lives; so that no one will now venture into them, and their entrances have now become choked up with rubbish. Near this ruin is a heap of rubbish, the sides of which are curiously streaked by the alternation of its materials, the chief part of which, it is probable, was unburnt brick, of which I found a small quantity in the neighbourhood, but no reeds were discoverable in the interstices."-p. 25.

It is probable that many fragments of antiquity, especially of the larger kind, are lost in this The inhabitants call all stones with inscriptions or figures on them, Idols.

The third and last ruin described in this eastern division, is that of Della Valle, so often alluded to above; and we think it too curious to be omitted, although Mr. Rich seems rather disinclined to adopt the opinion of its actually being the remains of the Tower of Belus.

"A mile to the north of the Kasr, or full five miles distant from Hella, and nine hundred and fifty yards from the river bank, is the last ruin of this series, which has been described by Pietro Della Valle, who determines it to have been the Tower of Belus, an opinion adopted by Rennel. The natives call it Mukallibe, or, according to the vulgar Arab pronunciation of these parts, Mujelibè, meaning overturned; they sometimes also apply this term to the mounds of the Kasr. It is of an oblong shape, irregular in its height and the measurement of its sides, which face the cardinal points; the northern side being two hundred yards in length, the southern two hundred and nineteen, the eastern one hundred and eighty-two, and the western one hundred and thirty-six; the elevation of the S.E. or highest angle, one hundred and forty-one feet. The western face, which is the least elevated, is the most interesting, on account of the appearance of building it presents. Near the summit of it appears a low wall, with interruptions, built of unburnt bricks, mixed up with chopped straw or reeds, and cemented with claymortar of great thickness, having between every layer a layer of reeds: and on the north side are also some vestiges of a similar construction. The S. W. angle is crowned by something like a turret or lanthern the other angles are in a less perfect state, but may originally have been ornamented in a similar manner. The western face is lowest and easiest of ascent, the northern the most difficult. All are worn into furrows by the weather; and in some places, where several channels of rain have united together, these furrows are of great depth, and penetrate a considerable way into the mound. The summit is covered with heaps of rubbish, in digging into some of which, layers of broken burnt brick, cemented with mortar, are discovered, and whole bricks, with inscriptions on them, are here and there found; the whole is covered with innumerable fragments of pottery, brick, bitumen, pebbles, vitrified brick or scoria, and even shells, bits of glass, and mother-of-pearl."-p. 28,

Mr. Rich, having now finished his observations on the ruins of the east bank of the Euphrates, enters upon the examination of what, on the opposite west bank, have been by some travellers supposed (and their suppositions have been adopted by Major Rennel) to be the remains of this great city. Those, however, which Mr. Rich describes, are of the most trifling kind, scarcely exceeding one hundred yards in extent, and wholly consisting of two or three insignificant mounds of earth, overgrown with rank grass. The country too being marshy, he doubts the possibility of there having been any buildings of any magnitude ever erected in that spot, and much less, buildings of the astonishing dimensions of those described by

the classical writers of antiquity.

He then opens to our view a new and almost unexplored remain of ancient grandeur, in the following passage, with which, and a few subsequent remarks, we shall conclude our extracts from this interesting little volume, in full expectation of being enabled hereafter to view the subject with many new lights thrown upon it.

"But although there are no ruins in the immediate vicinity of the river, by far the most stupendous and surprising mass of all the remains of Babylon is situated in this desert, about six miles to the S. W. of Hella. It is called by the Arabs Birs Nemroud, by the Jews Nebuchadnezzar's Prison, and has been described both by Père Emanuel and Niebuhr, (who was prevented from inspecting it closely by fear of the Arabs,) but I believe it has not been noticed by any other traveller. Rennel, on the authority of D'Anville, admits Père Emanuel's ruin into the limits of Babylon, but excludes Niebuhr's, which he says cannot be supposed to have been less than two or three miles from the S. W. angle of the city. No one who had not actually examined the spot could ever imagine them, in fact, to be one and the same ruin.

“I visited the Birs under circumstances peculiarly favorable to the grandeur of its effect. The morning was at first stormy, and threatened a severe fall of rain; but as we approached the object of our Journey, the heavy clouds separating discovered the Birs frowning over the plain, and presenting the appearance of a circular hill crowned by a tower, with a high ridge extending along the foot of it. Its being entirely concealed from our view during the first part of our ride, prevented our acquiring the gradual idea, in general so prejudicial to effect, and so particularly lamented by those who visit the Pyramids. Just as we were within proper distance, it burst at once upon our sight, in the midst of rolling masses of thick black clouds, partially obscured by that kind of haze whose indistinctness is one great cause of sublimity, whilst a few strong catches of stormy light, thrown upon the desert in the back ground, serve to give some idea of the immense extent and dreary solitude of the wastes in which this venerable ruin stands.

"The Birs Nemroud is a mound of an oblong figure, the total circumference of which is seven hundred and sixty-two yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is not more than fifty or sixty feet high; but at the western it rises in a conical figure to the elevation of one hundred and ninety-eight feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick, thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its height. It is perforated by small square holes disposed in rhomboids, The fine burnt bricks of which it is built have inscriptions on them; and so admirable is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that, though the layers are so close together that it is difficult to discern what substance is between them, it is nearly impossible to extract one of the bricks whole. The other parts of the summit of this hill are occupied by immense fragments of brick work of no determinate figure, tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses, as if they had undergone the action of the fiercest fire, or been blown up with gunpowder, the layers of the bricks perfectly discernible, a curious fact, and one for which I am utterly incapable of accounting. These, in

credible as it may seem, are actually the ruins spoken of by Père Emanuel, who takes no sort of notice of the prodigious mound on which they are elevated.

"It is almost needless to observe that the whole of this mound is itself a ruin, channelled by the weather and strewed with the usual fragments, and with pieces of black stone, sand stone, and marble. In the eastern part layers of unburnt brick are plainly to be seen, but no reeds were discernible in any part: possibly the absence of them here, when they are so generally seen under similar circumstances, may be an argument of the superior antiquity of the ruin. In the north side may be seen traces of building, exactly similar to the brick-pile. At the foot of the mound a step may be traced, scarcely elevated above the plain, exceeding in extent by several feet each way the true or measured base; and there is a quadrangular inclosure round the whole, as at the Mujelibè, but much more perfect and of greater dimensions. At a trifling distance from the Birs, and parallel with its eastern face, is a mound not inferior to that of the Kasr in elevation, but much longer than it is broad. On the top of it are two Koubbès, or oratories, one called Makam Ibrahim Khalil, and said to be the place where Ibrahim was thrown into the fire, by order of Nemroud, who surveyed the scene from the Birs; the other, which is in ruins, Makam Saheb Zeman; but to what part of Mehdy's life it relates I am ignorant. In the oratories I searched in vain for the inscriptions mentioned by Niebuhr; near that of Ibrahim Khalil is a small excavation into the mound, which merits no attention; but the mound itself is curious from its position, and correspondence with others, as I shall in the sequel have occasion to remark.

"Round the Birs are traces of ruins to a considerable extent. To the north is the canal which supplies Mesjid Ali with water, which was dug at the expense of the Nuwaub Shujahed Doulah, and called after his country Hindia. We were informed that, from the summit of the Birs, in a clear morning, the gilt dome of Mesjid Ali might be seen.”—pp. 34—38.

The result of the preceding cursory survey of the proudest remaining monuments of Asiatic antiquity, seems to be, that, although we have doubtless ascertained the site, and from evidence both external and internal many of the public edifices, of Babylon: yet the actual extent of the circumference of that great city, from the varying accounts of the ancient historians, remains still disputable, and must ever do so, unless the vestiges of its vast walls shall hereafter be accurately traced by still more assiduous local research. If the Birs and Della Valle's ruin, so very distant, were ever included in its walls, the mensurations assigned by the Father of History must be resorted to, however apparently incredible, to solve the difficulty; and Herodotus will thereby obtain a new and unfading laurel. In our present state of doubt and uncertainty, and until Mr. Rich shall favour us with the result of those more extended investigations designed by

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