131 



very site. Herodotus adds, that the fountains of bitumen at Is, from 

 whence the bitumen used in the construction of Babylon was 

 brought, were situated at eight days journey above that city : and 

 as, according to M. Niebuhr, there are copious fountains of bitu- 

 men near Hit, a town of the Euphrates, one hundred and twenty- 

 eight German miles above Hillah, reckoning the distance along the 

 bank of the Euphrates, the learned illustrator of Herodotus thinks 

 there can be no doubt, therefore, that Hit is the place intended by 

 Is, which should have been written It. 



M. Beauchamp, whose account is translated in the European 

 Magazine for 1792, says " the quantity of bitumen that must 

 have been employed in building Babylon, is scarcely credible. 

 Most probably," he says, " it was procured from Hit, on the Eu- 

 phrates, where we still find it. The master mason told me, that he 

 found some in a spot, which he was digging, about twenty years 

 ago, which is by no means strange, as it is common enough on the 

 banks of the Euphrates. I have myself seen it on the road from 

 Bagdad to Juba, an Arabian village, seated on that river/' 



Major Rennel*, to whose information, on this subject, the learned 

 are so much indebted, remarks, in corroboration of this statement, 

 that Diodorus says -f, that great quantities of bitumen flow out of the 

 ground at Babylon ; that these springs supplied it for the building 

 of the city ; and that it was even used for fuel. Major Rennell is 

 of opinion, that, perhaps, only such of the public buildings were ce- 

 mented with bitumen, as were exposed to the weather, or to in- 

 undations. This agrees with a modern custom in these parts ; for, 

 on occasion of an inundation, about the year 1733, the walls, in 

 Bagdad, were covered with a composition, of which bitumen made 

 a part:. The cement in the remarkable fortress of Alkadder, in the 



* P. 369. t Lib. ii. cap. 1. % Ives's Travels, p, 281, 



