OBSERVATIONS, &c. &c. SECTION I. The immense antiquity of these RUINS prevents even the site of ancient Babylon from being accurately ascertained; but the most probable hypothesis fixes it at and near HELLA, on the Euphrates; the chief arguments on which that hypothesis is founded. The whole country now called IRAK, once famous for its fertility and population, but now for the most part a barren swampy desert.-Summary description of Bubylon and its edifices, from ancient classical authors.—The asserted extent of its walls supposed, by Major Rennel, to be an exaggeration, owing to a mistaken notion of the true standard of the Greek stadium.-The accounts of these ruins as given by modern travellers, who have successively visited them previously to Mr. RICH. RAUWOLF, DELLA VALLE, NIEBUHR, OTTER, D'ANVILLE, BEAUCHAMP. Their descriptions_in general confirm and illustrate the classical accounts of them, particularly in respect to the form and elevation of the Temple of Belus, and its being constructed to face the CARDINAL POINTS; the two sorts of bricks, SUN-DRIED and FURNACE-BAKED, used in the construction of that Temple, and the massy walls; as, also, their being painted of different colours, and adorned with portraits of men and beasts.—The investigations of Mr. RICH are now commenced, in considerable detail. His description of the country extending between Bagdad and Hellah.—His account of the ruinous mound named AMRAM;—of a second, called the KASR;—of the ruin denominated DELLA VALLE's;-and of the BIRS NEMROUD.-Concluding reflections. WE shall cease to wonder at the various and often discordant accounts that have been given of the celebrated RUINS which form the subject of Mr. RICH'S Memoir, when we consider that a period of nearly four thousand years has rolled away since the first construction of the superb metropolis whose name they bear; and that, even in the time of the Parthian mo B narchy (according to St. Jerome, on the 13th chapter of Isaiah) it was reduced to such a state of decay, that its walls included only a park where the kings of that dynasty were accustomed to take the diversion of the chace. Within their circumference, according to the terrible denunciation in Isaiah, desolation had long fixed her gloomy reign, and BabyLON, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, was then become the habitation of the wild beasts of the desert. Well, indeed, may the glory of this renowned place be said to have departed, when even its site cannot, with precision, be ascertained; and when the antiquary and the traveller are alike bewildered amid the perplexity of their researches. Mr. RICH, however, seems to have made up his mind in this respect, convinced by the forcible statements and sound arguments of Major Rennel, in his valuable work on the Geography of Herodotus, that the actual site of those ruins is in the environs of Hella, a town situated on the Euphrates, built out of its ruins in the tenth century, and distant about forty-eight miles from Bagdad. This opinion is founded on, 1st, the latitude of the place, as given by Abulfeda, Ebn Haukal, Edrisi, and other oriental geographers, compared with the situation of Babylon, as recorded by classical writers *; 2nd, the stupendous magnitude and extent of the ruins at and near Hella; 3rd, its neighbourhood to the bituminous fountains of His, or Hit†, mentioned by Herodotus as being only eight days journey above it, of which viscid substance such immense quantities were necessary in the construction of a city whose towers, whose temples, and whose palaces, were built of * Niebuhr has collected and compared their different accounts, and fixed that latitude at 32o 28'. + It is denominated Is by Herodotus, but as the city of HIT (HEET) is exactly that distance from Hella, and abounds in asphaltic productions, there can be no doubt of the corruption of the text in this instance. It is mentioned by Edrisi, commonly called the Nubian geographer, as being washed by the FRAT, or Euphrates, at p. 197, when describing the courses of that river from its sources in Armenia, to its efflux into the Persian Gulph. |