siderable girth): yet the branches at the top are still perfectly verdant, and gently waving in the wind, produce a melancholy rustling sound. It is an evergreen, something resembling the lignum vitæ, and of a kind, I believe, not common in this part of the country, though I am told there is a tree of the same description at Bussora. All the people of the country assert that it is extremely dangerous to approach this mound after night-fall, on account of the multitude of evil spirits by which it is haunted. It will not be necessary to describe the inferior heaps, which cross the plain between the two principal mounds, and the inner line (F), and whose form and extent will be sufficiently apparent from the accompanying sketch; but, previous to giving an account of the last grand ruin, I shall say a few words more on the embankment of the river, which is separated from the mounds of Amran and the Kasr by a winding valley or ravine, a hundred and fifty yards in breadth, the bottom of which is white with nitre, and apparently never had any buildings in it, except a small circular heap in the centre of it near the point (C). The whole embankment* on the river side is abrupt, perpendicular, and shivered by the action of the water; at the foot of the most elevated and narrowest part of it (K), cemented into the burnt brick wall of which it is composed, are a number of urns filled with human bones, which had not under* See accompanying Plate. gone the action of fire. The river appears to have encroached here, for I saw a considerable quantity of burnt bricks, and other fragments of building in the water. A mile to the north of the Kasr, or full five miles distant from Hillah, and nine hundred and fifty yards from the river bank, is the last ruin of this series, which has been described by Pietro della Valle, who determines it to have been the Tower of Belus, an opinion adopted by Rennell. The natives call it Mukallibé (a) or, according to the vulgar Arab pronunciation of these parts, Mujelibè, meaning overturned; they sometimes also apply this term to the mounds of the Kasr. It is of an oblong shape, irregular in its height and the measurement of its sides, which face the cardinal points; the northern side being two hundred yards in length, the southern two hundred and nineteen, the eastern one hundred and eighty-two, and the western one hundred and thirty-six; the elevation of the S.E. or highest angle, one hundred and forty-one feet. The western face, which is the least elevated, is the most interesting on account of the appearance of building it presents. Near the summit of it appears a low wall, with interruptions, built of unburnt bricks mixed up with chopped straw or reeds, and cemented with claymortar of great thickness, having between every layer a layer of reeds; and on the north side are also some vestiges of a similar construction. The S.W. * See accompanying Plate. * |