The native driver turned up all right with the car and took us back to
Hillah. From there we crossed the river by the bridge of boats and at a
distance of about five miles came upon the scene of the great
excavations, which, although the city is said to have extended over an
area of some 200 square miles, is generally known as the site of
Babylon. It was in 1899, that the German archæologist, Dr. Koldeway,
began excavations on a large scale and with systematic care.

Although Babylon was a site occupied by some city in prehistoric times,
as stone and flint implements denote, the earliest _houses_ of
which there are any traces belong to about 2000 B.C. It was
Nebuchadnezzar, however (605--562 B.C.), who rebuilt the city
and made it very splendid, and it is to this period of his reign that
the greater part of the ruins of the great city belong. The mound Babil
is thought to be the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II. An inscription reads:
"On the brick wall towards the north my heart inspired me to build a
palace for the protecting of Babylon. I built there a palace, like the
palace of Babylon, of brick and bitumen."

[Illustration: BELLAMS UNDER SAIL]

The principal excavations are in the Kasr, at one time a vast block of
buildings where are still the traces of a great and broad street used as
a processional road to the temple of E-Sagila, which lies to the south
about 700 yards away. Some of the stones of this road are in their
original places, and there are pieces of brick pavement, each bearing
cuneiform characters. If you take up a brick and look at it casually,
you might think that it had "Jones & Co." or the "Sittingbourne Brick
Co." stamped upon it and it does not look at all old. It is rather
startling to be told that the letters read:--