ler. To omit more ancient visitors of the scene of these renowned ruins, in 1574, RAUWOLF, a German physician, went to explore them; and, imagining that he had found them at Felugia, a town on the Euphrates, two days' journey above Hella, he with great confidence points out the bridge, with its arches, (which could not be used in its construction-the Babylonians having been ignorant of the ARCH, and no traces of it being to be found at Hella), the Palace, and the Tower of Babel, and other distinguished monuments of its former grandeur. The next traveller into these parts, with the same view, was PIETRO DELLA VALLE, who, in 1616, examined them more minutely and leisurely, at the place where Eastern tradition had for ages fixed them-at and near Hella, and in the district expressly called Babel. His account is interesting and instructive, and he has the merit of having established, as far as the distance and devastation of time will admit of proof, the fact of these ruins being at least a part of the actual remains of the great city.

"In the midst of a vast and level plain,” says this writer, “about a quarter of a league from the Euphrates, appears a heap of ruined buildings, like a huge mountain, the materials of which are so confounded together, that one knows not what to make of it. Its figure is square, and it rises in form of a tower or pyramid, with four fronts, which answer to the four quarters of the compass, but it seems longer from north to south than from east to west, and is, as far as I could judge by my pacing it, a large quarter of a league. Its situation and form correspond with that pyramid which Strabo calls the tower of Belus."......"The height of this mountain of ruins is not in every part equal, but exceeds the highest palace in Naples; it is a mis-shapen mass, wherein there is no appearance of regularity; in some places it rises in sharp points, craggy, and inaccessible; in others it is smoother and of easier ascent; there are also traces of torrents from the summit to the base, caused by violent rains.".......... "It is built with large and thick bricks, as I carefully observed, having caused excavations to be made in several places for that purpose; but they do not appear to have been burned, but dried in the sun, which is extremely hot in those parts. These sun-baked bricks, in whose substance were mixed bruised reeds and straw, and which were laid in clay mortar, compose the great mass of the building, but other bricks were also perceived at certain intervals, especially where the strongest buttresses stood, of the same size, but burned in the kiln, and set in good lime and bitumen*.”

* Della Valle's Travels, vol. ii. let. 17.

This amazing pile, which resembles the mighty tower in question in so many points as scarcely to leave a doubt in the mind of its being the identical one described by Herodotus, and other classical writers of antiquity, is known to the natives, according to Mr. Rich, (p. 28 of this Memoir) by the name of MUJELIBE, meaning overturned, as the Eastern writers say Babel was by a tempest from Heaven. From Della Valle's discovery and description of it, it is generally called Della Valle's Ruin, which the reader will please to bear in mind, as it will frequently be so denominated in the course of this extended investigation.

The next traveller to the banks of the Euphrates was M. Niebuhr, and from that gentleman's acknowledged erudition, and his acuteness in examining subjects of Asiatic antiquity, it is to be regretted that he passed so rapidly, in his route to Bagdad, through those celebrated remains of Babylonian grandeur. It is well known, however, with how many obstacles, from the jealous suspicion as well as open hostility of the present possessors of those renowned regions, the European traveller, when unattended by a proper escort, has to contend. Such was the case with the learned Dane, whose description of the ruins is of a very general nature; although he confirms all that Della Valle has related respecting the immensity of the piles of ruin scattered over the wide plain of Hella, and the continual excavation of the ground for the bricks, of a foot square, which formed the foundation of the walls and structures of ancient Babylon. These, it has been observed, are on the Eastern side of the river; but Niebuhr also mentions a stupendous fabric* which he visited, about six miles below Hella, on the western side, called by the natives Birs Nemroud. Apprehensions of danger from the menacing Arabs who watched him, prevented his taking the dimensions of this hitherto little noticed mass of ruins, denominated, by the Jews settled in the neighbour

Niebuhr's Travels, vol. ii. p. 236.

с

hood, the prison of Nebuchadnezzar; but more probably, as D'Anville observes, his Palace. What, however, he was then prevented from doing, has since been effectually done by Mr. Rich, and our regret is in consequence proportionably diminished. We shall give an ample extract from that portion of his Memoir which describes this mighty ruin.

M. Otter, like Niebuhr, passed through this country too hastily to make any minute and accurate personal observations on the remaining monuments of Assyrian pride; but he was informed, that, amidst the woods and coppices which now envelope the site of Babylon, vast remains of walls and edifices were to be traced, and thinks it not improbable that some of these very woods, so abundantly dispersed over the grounds and preserved from age to age upon the same spot, may be the remains of the celebrated Hanging Gardens mentioned by Diodorus and Strabo*. To this it may be added, that Hella is at this day celebrated for the extent and beauty of its gardens.

Whatever comes from the pen of so great a geographer as D'Anville, deserves respectful attention, and on that account, rather than from any clearness of description in the narrative itself, it is proper to mention the manuscript of Père Emanuel, inserted in his Euphrates and Tigris at pages 116, 117, &c. giving an account of a vast ruin seen by that missionary on the western side of the river, the bricks composing which were of such a solid substance, and so closely compacted, that it was scarcely possible to detach them from the mass to which they were united. This was undoubtedly the Birs Nemroud, above alluded to, and so far the account is valuable; but it is accompanied with no detailed particulars with respect either to its extent or to its elevation.

The last account of these ruins that appeared in print, previously to this by Mr. Rich, is that by M. Beauchamp, who, in his distinguished

* Otter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 211.

+ Rich's Memoir, p. 12.

office of Vicar General of Babylon, had frequent opportunities of visiting and examining them. His account was given to the public in the European Magazine for May, 1799, being a translation from the French original, and is more minute and satisfactory than any preceding one as to the situation of the ruins and the materials of which they are composed. Speaking of Della Valle's ruin, he says it could never have been supposed to be the work of human hands, had it not been proved to be so by the layers of bricks, in regular order, burned in the fire, cemented with bitumen, and intermixed with osiers. He observed, impressed on most of them, the unknown characters already mentioned. He confirms all that Diodorus reports concerning the sculptured animals on the walls, and the paintings on the bricks, in the following remarkable passage: “This place and the Mount of Babel adjoining are commonly called by the Arabs Makloube, that is, topsy-turvy," (the Mujelibè of Mr. Rich). "I was informed by the master mason employed to dig for bricks, that the places from which he procured them were large thick walls, and sometimes spacious chambers. He has frequently found in them earthen vessels, engraved marbles, and about eight years ago a statue as large as life, which he threw back amongst the rubbish. On one wall of a chamber he found the figures of a cow, and of the sun and moon," (objects sacred in the astronomical worship of both Egypt and Babylon,) "formed of varnished bricks. Sometimes idols of clay are found, representing human figures. I found one brick on which was a Lion (the zodiacal lion,) and on others a half moon in relief*.” The same master mason took him to a place, where the wall, built of the same furnace-baked bricks, appeared to have been sixty feet thick; what an inexhaustible source of materials for the Arabian architect! In another place he found a subterranean canal, which, instead of being arched over, was covered with

*Europ. Mag. May, 1792.

massy flat pieces of sand-stone, six or seven feet long, by three wide. He concludes thus: "These ruins extend several leagues to the north of Hella, and incontestibly mark the situation of Ancient Babylon*."

We come at length, after this extensive range through preceding history and prior description ancient and modern, to the more recent survey of Babylon by the author before us.

The residence of Mr. Rich at the court of Bagdad, and the powerful protection of the Pasha, could not but afford him every facility for that comprehensive investigation, of which he desires us to consider the present essay as only the precursor. He commences the essay by declaring that he means to refrain from all idle conjecture, and to adhere to facts alone; to relate only what he saw, and in the order in which he saw it. He describes the whole country between Bagdad and Hella, a distance of 48 miles, as a perfectly flat and, for the most part, uncultivated waste; though it is evident, from the number of canals by which it is traversed, and the immense ruins that cover its surface, that it must formerly have been both well peopled and cultivated. For the accommodation of the traveller, at convenient distances throughout the whole track, there have been erected khans or caravanserais, and to each is attached a small village. About two miles above Hella, the more prominent ruins commence, among which, at intervals, are discovered, in considerable quantities, burnt and unburnt bricks and bitumen; two vast mounds in particular attract attention from their size, and these are situated on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. There are scarcely any remains of ruins visible, immediately opposite on the western bank, but there are some of a stupendous magnitude on that side, about six miles to the south-west of Hella, which will be noticed hereafter.

The first grand mass of ruins Mr. Rich describes as

* Europ. Mag. May, 1792.