When we had been walking for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves exceedingly in the delightful cool which about this time of the day always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kor, and which in some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze—­for all wind was kept off by the rocky mountain wall—­we began to get a clear view of what Billali had informed us were the ruins of the great city.  And even from that distance we could see how wonderful those ruins were, a fact which with every step we took became more evident.  The town was not very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other cities of remote antiquity; perhaps its outer wall contained some twelve square miles of ground, or a little more.  Nor had the walls, so far as we could judge when we reached them, been very high, probably not more than forty feet, which was about their present height where they had not through the sinking of the ground, or some such cause, fallen into ruin.  The reason of this, no doubt, was that the people of Kor, being protected from any outside attack by far more tremendous ramparts than any that the hand of man could rear, only required them for show and to guard against civil discord.  But on the other hand they were as broad as they were high, built entirely of dressed stone, hewn, no doubt, from the vast caves, and surrounded by a great moat about sixty feet in width, some reaches of which were still filled with water.  About ten minutes before the sun finally sank we reached this moat, and passed down and through it, clambering across what evidently were the piled-up fragments of a great bridge in order to do so, and then with some little difficulty over the slope of the wall to its summit.  I wish that it lay within the power of my pen to give some idea of the grandeur of the sight that then met our view.  There, all bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles upon miles of ruins—­columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied with patches of green bush.  Of course, the roofs of these buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great columns still remained standing.[*]

[*] In connection with the extraordinary state of preservation of these ruins after so vast a lapse of time—­ at least six thousand years—­it must be remembered that Kor was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but deserted, owing to the action of a terrible plague.  Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and there is very little rain or wind; as a result of which these relics have only to contend against the unaided action of time, that works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry. —­L.  H. H.

Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main thoroughfare of the city, for it was