THE MUJELIBE.

"THIS mound is composed of sun-dried bricks, cemented with clay mortar: between each layer of bricks is one of reeds. In walking, we stepped on several pieces of alabaster, and on a vitreous substance resembling glass. We saw great quantities of ornamental and other kinds of pottery. There were vast numbers of entire kiln-burnt bricks, which were all fourteen inches square, and three thick. On many were inscribed those unknown characters, resembling arrowheads, so remarkable in the ruins of Babylon and Persepolis. The freshness of the inscriptions was astonishing, appearing to have been recently stamped, instead of having stood the test of upwards of four thousand years.

"The mound was full of large holes; we entered some of them, and found them strewed with the carcases and skeletons of animals recently killed. The ordure of wild beasts was so strong, that prudence got the better of curiosity, for we had no doubt as to the savage nature of the inhabitants. Our guides, indeed, told us, that all the ruins abounded in lions and other wild beasts."See KEPPEL's Travels.

"While we were exploring the cave, an enormous wild boar of a reddish colour started up from amongst the ruins. The prophecy of Isaiah, that Babylon should be inhabited by wild beasts, was fulfilled... by the Parthians, (who) turned the city into a park, and stocked it with wild beasts for the purpose of hunting. Amongst these the wild boar is enumerated.

'I went, with ten men with pickaxes and shovels, to make experiments on the Mujelibè: they dug into the heaps on the top, and found layers of burnt brick, with inscriptions laid in mortar. A kind of parapet of unburnt bricks appears to have surrounded the whole. . . I found some beams of the date-tree .. In one hole I found some quills of a porcupine, which animal the

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natives eat. The man who accompanied me told me that in the desert to the west animals are found, the upper part of which resembles perfectly a man, and the lower parts a sheep-that the Arabs hunt them with

greyhounds, and that, when they find themselves close pressed, they utter miserable cries, entreating for mercy, but that the hunters kill them, and eat their lower parts. He had, evidently, not the slightest doubt of the truth of this wonderful story.1

"In one of the passages which had been laid open here, had been found a great number of marble fragments,

1 The belief of the existence of satyrs is by no means rare in this country. The Hebrew word thus translated in Isa. xiii. 21, is, literally, "the hairy ones." In Lev. xvii. 7, the word is used for devils, evil spirits. The present Jews understand it in this place as synonymous with demons. I know not why we introduced the word satyrs.

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and a body enclosed in a case or coffin of mulberry wood. .. I found a small point or spike of brass, wrought with some care. . . I left my people at work. and... they turned up several earthen pots, one of which had the remains of a fine white varnish on the outside. We found, on the top of the mound, several shells, a few bits of glass and mother-of-pearl, also several bricks which had been so much burnt that they had vitrified in some parts ...

"Last night, the men whom I had employed to dig in the grand mound came and informed me that they had discovered a skeleton in a coffin... The bones were astonishingly sound. They brought me, also, a brass bird, which seems to have been fixed to the coffin as an ornament; besides this was another brass ornament, which must have been suspended to some part of the skeleton ... In digging a little further, we found the bones of a young child. . . These, with the bodies found before, seem to prove this place to have been a cemetery." -RICH'S Memoir.

"The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows, worn partly by the weather, but more generally formed by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for bricks, and hunting for antiquities ... In these (holes) was an offensive smell, and the caves were strewed with the bones of sheep and goats, devoured most probably by the jackals, that resort thither in great numbers; and thousands of bats and owls have filled many of these cavities.

"The natives are very reluctant to follow the visitors into these dens, and dislike remaining near the ruins after sunset, from the fear of demons and evil spirits. There is danger of being stung by venomous reptiles, which are very numerous throughout the ruins."MIGNAN'S Travels in Chaldea.

BIRS NIMROD TOWER OF BABEL OR BELUS.

"THE ruins of the tower at first sight present the appearance of a hill with a castle on the top; the greater portion is covered with a light sandy soil, and it is only in ascending that the traveller discovers that he is walking on a vast heap of bricks . . . The mound is oblong. on the top is that which looked like a castle in the distance; it is a solid mass of bricks, which are of an excellent description,' laid in with a fine cement.

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1 Both sun-dried and furnace-burned bricks were used in the buildings of Babylon. The former, made with mud and chopped straw, and dried in the sun, were of course easily reduced in the course of time to their original materials, and formed immense heaps of dust and rubbish: the latter were taken away by the Arabs in large quantities for modern buildings.-The slime mentioned in Genesis was probably the asphaltus, or bitumen, with which Assyria abounds, and with which the buildings of Babylon were cemented. Layers of reeds were often placed between the courses of bricks. The long reeds now seen growing in many parts of the ruins are particularly noticed in Scripture; indeed, they are said to have been so

At regular intervals, some bricks are omitted so as to leave square apertures through the mass... pieces of marble, stones, and broken bricks, lie scattered (about). The most curious of the fragments are several misshapen masses of brickwork, quite black ... these have certainly been subjected to some fierce heat, as they are completely molten-a strong presumption that fire was used in the destruction of the tower, which in parts resembles what the Scriptures prophesied it should become-a burnt mountain. In the denunciations respecting Babylon, fire is particularly mentioned as an agent against it... Wild beasts appeared to be numerous here . . . Mr. Lamb gave up his examination, from seeing an animal crouched in one of the square apertures. I saw another in a similar situation, and the large footprint of a lion was so fresh that the beast must have stolen away on our approach.

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"From the summit we had a distinct view of the vast heaps which constitute all that now remains of ancient Babylon; a more complete picture of desolation could not well be imagined. The eye wandered over a barren desert, in which the ruins were nearly the only indication that it had ever been inhabited. It was impossible to behold this scene and not to be reminded how exactly the predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the appearance Babylon was doomed to present: that she should never be inhabited ;' that the Arabian should not pitch his tent there;' that she should become heaps; that her cities should be 'a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.""-KEPPEL's Personal Narrative.

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"We proceeded to the Birs Nimrod over a plain

high, together with the mud on which they stood, as to have formed, as it were, another wall round the city. When Jeremiah foretold the fall of Babylon, he describes the enemy as burning the reeds with fire.

The city of Babylon was surrounded by low marshy ground, and defended by canals cut from the river Euphrates, so that the reeds which grew in those places could not have been burnt unless the enemy had dried up the water passages, and so secured an easy entrance. This circumstance, then, would prove the hopeless condition of the city.