intersected by canals, the principal of which are the Tajeea, or Ali Pasha's Trench, and the canal of Tahmasia. There are a few small villages on the river, inclosed by mud walls, and surrounded by cultivation; but there is not the slightest vestige of ruins, excepting opposite the mass of Amran, where are two small mounds of earth, overgrown with grass, forming a right angle with each other, and a little further on, are two similar ones. These do not exceed a hundred yards in extent, and the place is called by the peasants Anana. To the north the country has a verdant marshy appearance.

But although there are no ruins in the immediate vicinity of the river, by far the most stupendous and surprising mass of all the remains of Babylon is situated in this desert, about six miles to the S.W. of Hillah. It is called by the Arabs Birs Nemroud,* by the Jews Nebuchadnezzar's Prison, and has been described both by Père Emanuel and Niebuhr † (who was prevented from inspecting it closely by fear of the Arabs), but I believe it has not been noticed

* The etymology of the word Birs (w) would furnish a curious subject for those who are fond of such discussion. It appears not to be Arabic, as it has no meaning which relates to this subject in that language, nor can the most learned person here assign any reason for its being applied to this ruin. N7 in Chaldean signifies a palace, and par excellence, the Temple of Jerusalem.

in the same language, and tation of demons, or a sandy desert. + See Appendix, No. 7.

pl.

Ar. mean the habi

برصة

by any other traveller.

Rennell, on the authority

of D'Anville, admits Père Emanuel's ruin into the
limits of Babylon, but excludes Niebuhr's, which

he
says cannot be supposed to have been less than
two or three miles from the S.W. angle of the city.
No one, who had not actually examined the spot
could ever imagine them in fact to be one and the
same ruin.

I visited the Birs under circumstances peculiarly favourable to the grandeur of its effect. The morning was at first stormy, and threatened a severe fall of rain; but as we approached the object of our journey, the heavy clouds separating discovered the Birs frowning over the plain, and presenting the appearance of a circular hill, crowned by a tower, with a high ridge extending along the foot of it. Its being entirely concealed from our view, during the first part of our ride, prevented our acquiring the gradual idea, in general so prejudicial to effect, and so particularly lamented by those who visit the Pyramids. Just as we were within the proper distance, it burst at once upon our sight, in the midst of rolling masses of thick black clouds partially obscured by that kind of haze, whose indistinctness is one great cause of sublimity, whilst a few strong catches of stormy light, thrown upon the desert in the back-ground, served to give some idea of the immense extent and dreary solitude of the wastes in which this venerable ruin stands.

The Birs Nemroud is a mound of an oblong figure, the total circumference of which is seven hundred and sixty-two yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is not more than fifty or sixty feet high; but at the western it rises in a conical figure, to the elevation of one hundred and ninetyeight feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick, thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its height. It is perforated by small square holes disposed in rhomboids. The fine burnt bricks of which it is built have inscriptions on them; and so admirable is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that, though the layers are so close together, that it is difficult to discern what substance is between them, it is nearly impossible to extract one of the bricks whole. The other parts of the summit of this hill are occupied by immense fragments of brick-work, of no determinate figure, tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses, as if they had undergone the action of the fiercest fire, or been blown up with gunpowder, the layers of the bricks being perfectly discernible,—a curious fact, and one for which I am utterly incapable of accounting. These, incredible as it may seem, are actually the ruins spoken of by Père Emanuel, who takes no sort of notice of the prodigious mound on which they are elevated.*

* Le P. Emanuel dit avoir vu (dans la partie occidentale) de

It is almost needless to observe that the whole of this mound is itself a ruin, channelled by the weather, and strewed with the usual fragments, and with pieces of black stone, sand-stone, and marble. In the eastern part, layers of unburnt brick are plainly to be seen, but no reeds were discernible in any part possibly the absence of them here, when they are so generally seen under similar circumstances, may be an argument of the superior antiquity of the ruin. In the north side may be seen traces of building exactly similar to the brick-pile. At the foot of the mound a step may be traced, scarcely elevated above the plain, exceeding in extent by several feet each way the true or measured base; and there is a quadrangular enclosure round the whole, as at the Mujelibè, but much more perfect and of greater dimensions. At a trifling distance from the Birs, and parallel with its eastern face, is a mound not inferior to that of the Kasr in elevation, but much longer than it is broad. On the top of it are two Koubbès or oratories, one called Makam Ibrahim Khalil, and said to be the place where Abraham was thrown into the fire by order of Nemroud, who surveyed the scene from the Birs ;* the other, which

grands pans de murs encore debout, d'autres renversés, mais d'une construction si solide, qu'il n'est presque pas possible de détacher d'entr'eux les carreaux de brique d'un pied et demi de longueur dont on sait que les édifices de Babylone étaient construits. Les Juifs, établis dans le pays, appellent ces restes de bâtisse La Prison de Nabuchadnasser; il conviendrait mieux de dire le palais. D'Anville sur l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 117.

* The person here referred to is no other than Abraham, respect

is in ruins, is called Makam Saheb Zeman ;* but to ing whom the Mahometans have numerous fabulous histories; the one relating to his being thrown into the fire is as follows:-they believe him to have been a subject of Nimrod's-that he was born and hid by his mother in a cave until he was fifteen, to preserve him from falling into the hands of Nimrod, who would have put him to death, on account of a dream which his astrologers interpreted to relate to a child who should be born at that time, and become a great prince, and very formidable to Nimrod.

During this time of the seclusion of Abraham, he saw no one but his mother. She was surprised, whenever she went to see him, to find him sucking his fingers, out of which proceeded milk and honey; but her surprise was changed into joy, when she understood that it was God, who had thus undertaken to supply her son with nourishment.

He is described afterwards as being taken out of the cave, and brought by his parents into Babylon, which is called Nimrod's capital. On his way, everything he sees astonishes him, and he is represented as inquiring who is the Creator of all things, and consequently who is his Lord. At first sight of the stars, the moon, and the sun, he is inclined to worship them as the Creator, until he sees them going down.

His father presents him to Nimrod, surrounded with all his courtiers; and, upon hearing from his father that this personage is the Lord of all the people standing around him, and that they all acknowledge him as their God, Abraham looks at Nimrod, and, observing that he was very ugly, asks his father how it could happen that he whom he called his God should have made creatures so much more beautiful than himself; that a Creator must necessarily be more perfect than his creation. This was the first occasion taken by Abraham, says the Mahometan account, to deliver his father from idolatry, and to preach to him that unity of God, the Creator of all things, which had been revealed to him during his meditations the night before. So great was his zeal upon this subject, that it drew down upon him the anger of his father, and brought him into great difficulties with Nimrod's courtiers, who refused to acquiesce in the truth he set before them. A report of these discussions reached the ears of Nimrod, and this proud and cruel king ordered Abraham to be thrown into a heated furnace, out of which, however, he was taken uninjured: the fire not having been permitted to touch him. The title given by the Mahometans to Abraham is Khalil Ullah, or the friend of God.

* This is the same person as is sometimes called Mehdy. He was