through a solid building. Under the foundations at the southern end an opening is made, which discovers a subterranean passage, floored and walled with large bricks, laid in bitumen, and covered over with pieces of sand-stone, a yard thick, and several yards long; the weight of the whole being so great as to have given a considerable degree of obliquity to the side-walls of the passage. It is half full of brackish water (probably rain water impregnated with nitre, in filtering through the ruins, which are all very productive of it), and the workmen say that some way on it is high enough for a man on horseback to pass: as much as I saw of it, it was near seven feet in height, and its course to the south. This is described by Beauchamp (vide Rennell, p. 369)*, who most unaccountably imagines it must have been part of the city wall. The superstructure over the passage is cemented with bitumen, other parts of the ravine with mortar, and the bricks have all writing on them. The northern end of the ravine appears to have been crossed by an extremely thick wall of yellowish brick, cemented with a brilliant white mortar, which has been broken through in hollowing it out; and a little to the north of it I discovered what Beauchamp saw imperfectly, and understood from the natives to be an idol. (Rennell, ibid.) I was told the same thing, and that it was discovered by an old Arab in digging, but that not knowing what to do with it, he covered it up * See Appendix, No. 6.

again.* On sending for the old man, who pointed out the spot, I set a number of men to work, who after a day's hard labour, laid open enough of the statue to show that it was a lion of colossal dimensions, standing on a pedestal, of a coarse kind of grey granite, and of rude workmanship; in the mouth was a circular aperture, into which a man might introduce his fist.

A little to the west of the ravine at (H) is the next remarkable object, called by the natives the Kasr, or Palace,† by which appellation I shall designate the whole mass. It is a very remarkable ruin, which being uncovered, and in part detached from the rubbish, is visible from a considerable distance, but so surprisingly fresh in its appearance, that it was only after a minute inspection I was satisfied of its being in reality a Babylonian remain. It consists of several walls and piers (which face the cardinal points), eight feet in thickness, in some places ornamented with niches, and in others strengthened by pilasters and buttresses, built of fine burnt brick (still perfectly clean and sharp), laid in lime-cement of such tenacity, that those whose business it is to find bricks, have given up working, on account of the extreme difficulty of extracting them whole. The tops of these walls are broken, and may have been much higher. On the outside they have in some places

* It is probable that many fragments of antiquity, especially of the larger kind, are lost in this manner. The inhabitants call all stones with inscriptions or figures on them Idols,

See accompanying Plate.

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been cleared nearly to the foundations, but the internal spaces formed by them are yet filled with rubbish, in some parts almost to their summit. One part of the wall has been split into three parts, and overthrown as if by an earthquake; some detached walls of the same kind, standing at different distances, show what remains to have been only a small part of the original fabric; indeed it appears that the passage in the ravine, together with the wall which crosses its upper end, were connected with it. There are some hollows underneath, in which several persons have lost their lives; so that no one will now venture into them, and their entrances have now become choked up with rubbish. Near this ruin is a heap of rubbish, the sides of which are curiously streaked by the alternation of its materials, the chief part of which, it is probable, was unburnt brick, of which I found a small quantity in the neighbourhood, but no reeds were discoverable in the interstices. There are two paths near this ruin, made by the workmen, who carry down their bricks to the river side, whence they are transported by boats to Hillah; and a little to the N.N.E. of it is the famous tree which the natives call Athelè, and maintain to have been flourishing in ancient Babylon, from the destruction of which, they say, God purposely preserved it, that it might afford Ali a convenient place to tie up his horse after the battle of Hillah! It stands on a kind of ridge, and nothing more than one side of its trunk remains (by which it appears to have been of con