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