The traveller, before reaching Babil, when about four miles distant, follows a beaten track, winding amidst low mounds, and crossing the embankments of canals long since dry, or avoid ing the heaps of drifted earth which cover the walls and foundations of buildings. The mounds seem to be scattered without order, and to be gra dually lost in the vast plains to the eastward. But southward of Babil, for the distance of nearly three miles, there is almost an uninterrupted line of mounds, the ruins of vast edifices collected together as in the heart of a great city. They are inclosed by earthen ramparts, the remains of a line of walls which, leaving the foot of BAUD, stretched inland about two and a half miles from the present bed of the Euphrates, and then, turning nearly at right angles, completed the defences on the southern side of the principal buildings that mark the site of Babylon on the eastern bank of the river. Between its most southern point and Hillah, as between Mohawill and Babil, can only be traced low heaps and embankments scattered irregularly over the the plain. It is evident, as he observes, that the space inclosed within this continuous rampart could not have contained the whole of that mighty city, whose magnificence and extent were the wonder of the ancient world. From A mram, the last of the great mounds, a broad and well-trodden track winds through thick groves of palms. About an hour's ride beneath pleasant shade brings the traveller to the falling gateway of the town of Hillah. A mean bazaar, crowded with Arabs, camels, and asses, leads to a bridge of boats across the Euphrates.' The following description of this place, the modern representative of Babylo., by Mr. Layard, will also be read with interest : Hillah may contain S000 or goon inhabitants ; a few half-ruined mosques and public baths are its principal buildings ; the bazaar supplies the desert Arabs with articles of clothing, arms, dates, coffee, and corn, and contains a few common Manchester goods, and English cutlery and hardware. The Euphrates flows through the town, and is about zoo yards wide and 15 feet deep ; a noble stream, with a gentle current, admirably fitted for steam navigation. The houses, chiefly built of bricks taken from the ruins of ancient Babylon, are small and mean. Around the town, and above and below it for some miles, are groves of palm trees, forming a broad belt on both sides of the river. In the plain beyond them, a few canals bear water to plots cultivated with wheat, barley, and rice.' The complete absence of remains is to be ex. plained by the nature of the material used in the erection of even the most costly edifices. In the immediate vicinity of Babylon there were no quar. ries of alabaster or of limestone such as existed near Nineveh. The city was built in the midst of an alluvial country 'far removed from the hills. The comparatively recent deposits of the mighty rivers which have gradually formed the Mesopo tamian plains consist of a rich and very thick clay. Consequently, stone for building purposes could only be obtained from a distance. The black basalt, a favourite material amongst the Babylonians for carving detached figures, and for architectural ornaments, as appears from numerous fragments found amongst the ruins, came from the Kurdish mountains, or from the north of Mesopotamia. It was probably floated down the Euphrates and Tigris on rafts from these districts. Limestone of an inferior quality might have been quarried nearer to the city, but it seems to have been little used for building purposes. The Assyrian alabaster could have been brought from Nineveh, and the water communication by the rivers and canals offered great facilities for transport : yet enormous labour and expense would have been required to supply such materials in sufficient quantities to construct an entire edifice, or even to panel the walls of its chambers. The Babylonians were, therefore, con tent to avail themselves of the building materials which they found on the spot. With the tenacious mud of their alluvial plains, mixed with chopped straw, they made brick, whilst bitumen and other substances collected from the immediate neighbour hood furnished them with an excellent cement. A knowledge of the art of manufacturing glaze and of compounding colours enabled them to cover their bricks with a rich enamel, thereby rendering them equally ornamental for the exterior and interior of their edifices. The walls of their palaces and temples were also coated, as we learn from several passages of the Bible, with mortar and plaster, which, judging from their cement, must have been of fine quality. The fingers of the man's hand wrote the words of condemnation of the Babylonian empire `upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace.' Upon those walls were painted historical and religious subjects, and various ornaments, and, according to Diodorus Siculus, the bricks were enamelled with the figures of men and animals.
Images of stone were no doubt introduced into the buildings. We learn from the Bible that figures of the gods in this material, as well as in metal, were kept in the Babylonian temples. But such sculptures were not common, otherwise more re mains of them must have been discovered in the ruins.
The bricks of Babylon are said by Sir R. Ker Porter to be of two kinds, sun-dried and fire-burnt. The former is generally the largest, as it is of a coarser fabric than the latter, but its solidity appears to be equal to the hardest stone. It is composed of clay mixed with chopped straw or broken reeds to compact it, and then dried in the sun. He observes also that, considering so many centuries have passed since Babylon became a deserted habi tation, and its position in the neighbourhood of populous nations, our surprise ought to be not that we find so little of its remains, but that we see so much. From her fallen towers have arisen not only all the present cities in her vicinity, but others which, like herself, are long ago gone down into the dust. Since the days of Alexander we find four capitals at least built out of her remains. Seleucia by the Greeks, Ctesiphon by the Parthians, Almaidan by the Persians, Kufa by the Caliphs, with towns, villages, and caravansaries without. number. Scarce a day passed while he was there without his seeing people digging in the mounds of Babylon for bricks, which they carried to the river and then conveyed in boats to wherever they were wanted.
Early Histo7 y. —It is not easy to give a general or popular sketch of the early history of Babylonia, seeing that the discoveries which have lately been made in it are the results of some of the most pro found of Col. Rawlinson's researches, which involve a familiarity with names and writers not ordinarily met with in the range of biblical or classical read ing. Indeed, the names which have been disin terred and brought to light by the excavations in Babylonia and Chalda were entirely lost to the world till within a very' recent period. In the case of a very few it is perhaps possible to establish an identification with certain proper names with which we are familiar in the Scriptures, but in the great majority of instances we are introduced to persons of whom till now we have never before heard. It has been, nevertheless, clearly ascertained that these excavations have presented us with names of a line of kings who must have flourished during a period of upwards of 600 years, and can be traced backward to an epoch of very remote antiquity. Bricks have been found, for instance, which bear stamped upon them the name of Urukh, who seems to have been the founder of several of the great capitals, and whose reign may be placed as far back as B. C. 2234. These bricks exist in abundance at Mugheir, 'Parka, Senkereh, and Niffer, and being generally found in the base of the various buildings, while the bricks of other mo narchs appear in the upper storeys of them, this circumstance would seem to point to the conclusion that he was the original founder of these cities. He styles himself king of Hur and Kinzi Accad. The former of these names being Ur of the Chaldees, of which the modern representation is Mugheir, while the latter is an ethnic designation of the Hamite race, and answers to the Accad of Genesis. The son of this king was Ilgi : he has left fewer relics than his father, but from other inscriptions is known to have completed some of the buildings at Mugheir which had been left unfinished by him.
We are enabled to fix approximately the date of another early king of Babylonia by a remarkable series of ascertained dates. For instance, an inscrip tion of Sennacherib on the rocks at BaviAn relates his recovery of certain gods which had been carried to Babylon by Merodach-adan-akhi, 418 years before, upon the defeat of Tiglath-pileser by the latter monarch. This recovery took place in the tenth year of Sennacherib's reign, and we may reasonably assign the same date, viz., B. C. 692, to this inscription. Moreover, the cylinders at Kalah Sherghat relate that the same Tiglath-pileser rebuilt in the city of Asshur, 6o years after it had been pul led down on account of its unsoundness, a temple which had stood for a period of 641 years from its first foundation. The original builder of this temple was Shamas-Iva, or Shamas-Phul, the son of Ismi dagon. Now, adding together these various dates, viz., 692 B. C., the date of the Bavian inscription, the 4t 8 previous years intervening from the defeat of Tiglath-pileser, the 6o and 641 years already specified, and allowing 5o years for the reigns of Shamas-Iva and Ismi-dagon, together with the interval that probably elapsed between the defeat and the rebuilding of the temple, we obtain a total of 1861 years, which will represent approximately the date of Ismi-dagon's accession.