broken” down, and her “high gates burned with fire.”  “The golden city hath ceased.”  God has “swept it with the bosom of destruction.”  “The glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency,” is become “as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha.”  The traveller who passes through the land is at first inclined to say that there are no ruins, no remains, of the mighty city which once lorded it over the earth.  By and by, however, he begins to see that though ruins, in the common acceptation of the term, scarcely exist—­though there are no arches, no pillars, but one or two appearances of masonry even yet the whole country is covered with traces of exactly that kind which it was prophesied Babylon should leave.  Vast “heaps” or mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood, and between the “heaps” the soil is in many places composed of fragments of pottery and bricks, and deeply impregnated with nitre, infallible indications of its having once been covered with buildings.  As the traveller descends southward from Baghdad he finds these indications increase, until, on nearing the Euphrates, a few miles beyond Mohawil, he notes that they have become continuous, and finds himself in a region of mounds, some of which are of enormous size.

These mounds begin about five miles above Hillah, and extend for a distance of about three miles from north to south along the course of the river, lying principally on its left or eastern bank.  The ruins on this side consist chiefly of three great masses of building.  The most northern, to which the Arabs of the present day apply the name of Babil—­the true native appellation of the ancient citys—­is a vast pile of brick-work of an irregular quadrilateral shape, with precipitous sides furrowed by ravines, and with a flat top. [Plate X., Fig.,3.] Of the four faces of the ruin the southern seems to be the most perfect.  It extends a distance of about 200 yards, or almost exactly a stade, and runs nearly in a straight line from west to east.  At its eastern extremity it forms a right angle with the east face, which runs nearly due north for about 180 yards, also almost in a straight line.  The western and northern faces are apparently much worn away.  Here are the chief ravines, and here is the greatest seeming deviation from the original lines of the building.  The greatest height of the Babil mound is 130 or 140 feet.  It is mainly composed of sun-dried brick, but shows signs of having been faced with fire-burnt brick, carefully cemented with an excellent white mortar.  The bricks of this outer facing bear the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar.  A very small portion of the original structure has been laid bare enough however to show that the lines of the building did not slope like those of a pyramid, but were perpendicular, and that the side walls had, at intervals, the support of buttresses.