when we find, by the quotation we have made from the sacred volume, that, five hundred years before the time of their formation, vast expenses were incurred by the Jewish monarch for like purposes of gratification, and that in the neighboring kingdom of Persia, throughout all ages, the cultivation of all kinds of trees and fruits, that might delight the eye or charm the sense, has ever continued, it requires no very great stretch of faith to suppose there is not, in the accounts we have given, any exaggeration.

From Rich's "Memoirs on Babylon," and Sir R. K. Porter's "Travels," we gather all the information that can be obtained from an inspection of the remains of this wondrous city of the East. It is most probable that when these ruins shall undergo the careful examination that Mr. Layard has so recently made at Nineveh, very interesting results will be obtained...

The whole country between Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exception of a few spots as you approach the latter place) uncultivated waste. That it was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the number of canals by which it is traversed, now dry and neglected, and the quantity of heaps of earth, covered with fragments of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direction, the indisputable traces of former population. At present the only inhabitants of this tract are the Zobeide Arabs, the sheikh of which tribe is responsible for the security of the road, which is so much frequented that robberies are comparatively seldom heard of. At convenient distances, khans or caravansaries are erected for the

accommodation of travelers, and to each of them is attached a small village of fellahs.

At the village of Mohawil is a large canal, with a bridge over it; beyond this everything announces an approach to the remains of a great city. The ruins of Babylon may in fact be said almost to commence from this spot, the whole country between it and Hillah exhibiting, at intervals, traces of building, in which are discoverable burned and unburned bricks and bitumen; three mounds in particular attract attention from their magnitude. The ground to the right and left of the road bears the appearance of being partially, and occasionally, a morass, though at times it is perfectly dry: the road, which is due south, lies within a quarter of a mile of the celebrated mass, called by Pietro della Valle the Tower of Belus. Hillah is nine miles from Mohawil, and nearly forty-eight from Bagdad.

Hillah is called by Abulfeda, Hillah Benne Mozeid: he, and the Turkish geographer who copies him, say it was built, or rather augmented, by Saifed-Doulah, in the year of the Hejira 495, or A. D. 1101-2, in the land of Babel. The Turkish geographer appears to place the ruins of Babylon considerably more to the northward, in the direction of Sura and Felugiah. The district called by the natives El-Aredth Babel extends on both sides the Euphrates. Its latitude, according to Niebuhr, is 32° 28', and it is situated on the western bank of the Euphrates, a few shops and huts only being on the eastern. It is meanly built, and its population does not exceed between six thousand and seven thousand, consisting of Arabs and Jews, (who have one synagogue,) there being no Christians, and only

such Turks as are employed in the government. It is divided into seven small mahalles or parishes; but there is only one mosque in the town, all the other places of worship being mere ibadetgahs or oratories. The walls are of mud, and present a truly contemptible appearance; but the present pasha of Bagdad has ordered a new wall to be constructed of the finest Babylonian bricks. The gates are three in number, and, as usual in the East, each takes the name of the principal place it leads to, the northern one being called the gate of Hussein or Kerbela, the center that of Tahmasia, (a large village in the neighborhood,) and the southern the gate of Nejef or Imam Ali. The little street on the eastern side is also closed by a gate, or rather door. The gardens on both sides the river are very extensive, so that the town itself, from a little distance, appears imbosomed in a wood of date-trees. On the outer verge of the gardens on the west, small redans are established, within sight and hearing of each other, in each of which a matchlockman mounts guard at night; and for greater security against the marauders of the desert, the late Ali Pasha dug an ample trench round the whole, and built a citadel (which, as usual in these countries, is nothing more than a square inclosure) in the town, on the bank of the river. Mr. Rich, in his Memoir, says:

"Among the gardens a few hundred yards to the west of the Husseinia gate is the Mesjid-el-Shems, a mosque built on the spot where popular tradition says a miracle, similar to that of the prophet Joshua, was wrought in favor of Ali, and from this the mosque derives its appellation. It is a small building, having instead of a minaret an obelisk, or

rather hollow cone fretted on the outside like a pineapple, placed on an octagonal base: this form, which is a very curious one, I have observed in several very old structures, particularly the tomb of Zobeide, the wife of Haroun-al-Raschid, at Bagdad, and I am informed that it cannot now be imitated. On the top of the cone is a mud cap, elevated on a pole, resembling the cap of liberty. This, they say, revolves with the sun; a miracle I had not the curiosity to verify. The inside of the mosque is supported by rows of short pillars about two feet in girth: from the top of each spring pointed arches, in form and combination resembling in a striking manner the Gothic architecture. It contains nothing remarkable except what the people show as the tomb of the prophet Joshua. This country abounds in supposed tombs of prophets. On the Tigris, between Bagdad and Bussora, they show the sepulcher of Ezra; twelve miles in the Desert, to the S. W. of Hillah, is that of Ezekiel; and to the southward, the tomb of Job: the two former are places of pilgrimage of the Jews, who do not acknowledge those of Job and Joshua.

The district of Hillah extends from Husseinia, (which is a canal leading from the Euphrates near Musseib to Imam Hussein,) on the north, to the town of Hasca on the south. It is governed by a bey, who is always a Turk or Georgian, appointed by the Pasha of Bagdad, from whom the government is farmed for a stipulated yearly sum. There is also a sirdar, or commandant of janizaries, and a cadi, whose office, unlike any other of the same kind in Turkey, has been continued in the same family for upward of a century. The inhabitants of Hillah

bear a very bad character. The air is salubrious, and the soil extremely fertile, producing great quantities of rice, dates, and grain of different kinds, though it is not cultivated to above half the degree of which it is susceptible.

The grand cause of this fertility is the Euphrates, the banks of which are lower and the stream more equal than the Tigris. Strabo says that it was a stadium in breadth at Babylon; according to Rennell, about four hundred and ninty-one English feet; or D'Anville's still more reduced scale, three hundred and thirty. Niebuhr says, at Hillah it is four hundred Danish feet broad; my measurement by a graduated line at the bridge there, brings it to seventy-five fathoms, or four hundred and fifty feet; its breadth, however, varies in its passage through the ruins. Its depth I found to be two and a half fathoms, and the current runs at the medium rate of about two knots; when lowest, being probably half a knot less, and when full, a knot more. The Tigris is infinitely more rapid, having a current of near seven knots when at its height. The Euphrates rises at an earlier period than the Tigris; in the middle of the winter it increases a little, but falls again soon after; in March it again rises; and in the latter end of April is at its full, continuing so till the latter end of June. When at its height it overflows the surrounding country, fills the canals dug for its reception, without the slightest exertion of labor, and facilitates agriculture in a surprising degree. The ruins of Babylon are then inundated so as to render many parts of them inaccessible, by converting the valleys among them into morasses. But the most remarkable inundation of the Euphrates is at Felu

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